Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1906-02-11
BY John kendriek Bangs


TT has been one of the most persist
ent complaints of the present CEN
fury that the domestic problem is
the hardest one to solve and that no
matter how much the producers work
overtime 1t seems to be quite impos-
sible to keep the consumers of the hour
properly supplied with cooks. 1 must
confess that the scarcity of cooks has
never seriously bothered me. The con-
trary is the fact. There have always
been too many of them in my house.
hold for comfort. In 1904, If remem-
her rightly, 1 had seventeen of them
in a. period of four months, and last
year, from Gladys, with whom we be-
gan, to Gwendolin, with whom we fin
ished the twelve months no less than
tweny-nine of these ladies graced my
household. Why there should have
been so many of them am quite sure
l do not know.
One changes from one to another be-
cause one desires an improvement upon
what has gone before. and 1t is only
fair to Gladys that L say that few of
QeT SuCCeSSOTb were ntT SuptTlOI Ill any
of the essentials of good cookery, So
briefly or industry, and not one of them
could make such gorgeous flapjackS as
she.
But 1t was not in "reminiscences of
cooks l have met that 1 proposed to
indulge here. 1t was to the point of
this scarcity that I was speaking, and
I presume from the universality of
the impression that cooks really are
,arin IN hn
trary Notwithstanding is to say,
the cook that will stay with us for any
appreciable length of time probably is
as scarce as those of hens teeth we
read Of in last century's fiction.
The nomadic tribes of ancient times
seem to have been naught but the
amateur forerunners of the species.
The Wandering Jew was a permanent
resident of some chosen locality COM
pared to the average Queen of the
Kitchen through whose efforts nova
days we WOO dyspepsia and turn
frowning front upon longevity.
What the causes of this condition
may be it is not the purpose of this
paper to inquire into. Whether it is
due to the inartistic methods of en-
ployers in their attitude toward their
cooks or is because of the restless spirit
of the age that brings it about is i'm
material. 1t is what the prevailing con-
dition is going to lead us into that / am
concerned with-not that l particularly
care. but for the information of those
who, like my good friend Col. Gabster,
are wrought up on the subject and
would really like to know.
Gabster's sufferings from chaotic con-
ditlons in the kitchen have been acute
for period of quite ten days 1t ap-
pears that Mrs. Gabster refused to give
her cook two dollars more wages per
month than the girl was already re-
celving, with the result that she dis
charged herself without reference.
We've had to feed at a restaurant
for week now" said the colonel rue
fully land as L figure it out we stand
10 lose $97 by the operation, or enough
TO have paid Maude the increased wages
she asked for for forty-eight months
and fifteen days, or a trife over four
years and two weeks"
1T would have been cheaper to have
given her what she asked" said 1.
"A good deal" said Gabster. "She
wouldn't have stayed that long any
how, and we could have economical
on her successor. 1 don't know what
the dickens we are coming to-"
IN consult the spectrophone and
see" said I, and the very next chance
] got did so.
The first material revelation of the
lenses was the condition of affairs in
| fear that few of us now living will
benefit by it. In 1920 it seems that GER
tain alert minds, taking cognizance of
the deplorable condition of affairs which
was driving everybody into the hotels
and so destroying the home as an in
stitution. had organized what they
called the Consolidated Cookery COM
pany, which undertook to do the cult
nary work OF families large and small
over the city IT was simple in it's OPP
erations, it's work consisting of send
ing an expert into the Kitchens of sub
scribers every day to prepare the meals
which they desired to have cooked al
stated charges. The company was i'm
corporated and did thriving business;
so prosperous was its trade, i'm fact,
that one morning the city of New York
walked up to find itself in the clutches
Of the culinary trust.
Not cook in the whole city but was
In control of the consolidated. taking
advantage of which the company
trebed the rates for breakfast. doubled
the terms for luncheons and hoisted
their quotations for dinner service 450
per cent.
The result was great popular out
cry and many cases of starvation
among people who refused to yield as a
matter of principle, but whose stOm-
achs were not attuned to canned foods,
but for two years the company persist
ed In its nefarious course until i'm 1925,
by an almost unanimous vote, the city
decided to go in for a municipal cook
cry plant of its own. The advocates of
this latter enterprise argued on a basis
Of 1905 that II il was then possible for
the city to have a policeman I'm every
kitchen i'm town there was no reason
why It should not do the same with
cooks IN 1926, and the outraged citizens,
only too anxious to deal death blow
n "a NJ "a ted
them In their contentious.
Consequently in 1926 the municipal
cookery plant OF the city OF New York