Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-07-19
MEALS OF THE FUTURE.
Cooperative Kitchen Expected I
Solve Servant Problem.

cooperative Kitchen Expected TO
Solve Servant Problem.
1t is to cooperative kitchens that
many people in London look for the
partial solution of the servant problem,
says the Philadelphia Ledger The be-
lever in cooperation sees d street Of
little villas, occupied for the most part
by middle-clasS families of moderate
or even Scanty means. In every house
there is . kitchen; in every kitchen
there is range, and before every
range there is woman, who, be she
mistress or maid, is with very imper
feet knowledge engaged in cooking
meals that are generally both wasteful
and unsatisfactory. A common kitchen
for the whole street would mean an inn
mediate saving of an immense amount
OF labor now expended with very little
result.
The plan appears at first sight to
have so much to recommend it that one
wonders some enterprising capitalist
has not come forward and built
street with a kind of administrative
block" at one end, which should contain
the kitchens and proper staff of cooks
and housekeepers, whence proper meals
should be sent out to all the tenants of
the houses General domestic service
could also be provided in the same way.
1t sounds most attractive; yet, after
all, it has to some extent, been tried
and not with brilliant success. Sets
of mansion flats have not infrequently
been run on these lines. Experience in
these has too often shown that domes-
tic service provided in common is even
inferior to that which the individual
can obtain for himself separately, and
that meals, from general kitchen are
ruinously expensive.
Further, there is something about
restaurant meals''-and meals provid-
ed from a common kitchen must always
be of the nature of restaurant meals
against which the soul of man revolts.
Rather would he have cold shoulder of
mutton and overlooked potatoes that
have been cooked in the domestic back
kitchen than the most varied of entrees
and relieves that yet in some mysterious
way always contrive to have the same
fiavor-the restaurant flavor. Is there
a stronger proof that nature intended
man to live in a family than the rapid
ity with which he wearies even of the
best of restaurants?
The part that meals play in the main
tenance of home life has never been
sufficiently recognized Yet, after all,
meals form the chief occasions in which
members of family are brought into
contact with each other. However in
explicable it may be, it is clear that the
custom of eating together, as a rule,
engenders of itself certain friendli-
ness. Dining in public dining rooms,
such as suggested in Looking Back
ward" would never have the same So
cial and friendly influence Members
of a family would, indeed, soon cease to
meet at all, probably. The early and
late risers would breakfast apart The
dinner hour would in the same way be
varied according to the caprice or occu-
patton of each individual.
Still more gloomy, from a social and
human point of view, is the further
revolution with which some scientists
threaten u.s. This is the total abolition
of cooking and kitchens alike Meals
in the ordinary sense of the word will
cease, and we shall take all necessary
sustenance in tabloid form. Breakfast
:e4 % IL Of \
milk and two tablOids of bacon and
egg essence and three of concentrated
toast powder; dinner will be on the
same lines. Social Intercourse would
then cease, for how can social inter
course be imagined without hospital
ity? And hospitality under such condi-
tons would be a farce.