Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1919-07-10

The oldfash:onei home is fast dis
nv I appearing. Peopla are living in
apartments and residential hotels.
- buying cooked food at the decates-
sen shops, eating at restaurants. Why?
Well, largely because they have to. The old
Fashioned home in dwelling, With servants and
home cooking Isl still an American IDEAL But the
increasing lack of servants, especially of cooks.
makes the old-fashioned home burden to peoplc
of moderate means and to women who want To
do something besides keep house. 1t is fast co,nno
to the time when only two
classes can keep house with - a GWln
any satisfaction: the very NJ III INN
rich who hire profession IN NEN
al servants at high wages; ./ENLcN
the poor, who do without M >[
servants. The moderately ~~l y
Well-tOdo must -Ly,N
choose between Homework --(/SM
!: !: !: =: J
and all other activities She n =
cannot get servants, because -1S;&A
we have servant class in ~ "a
this country. Working wom- VNYWg1i
en- will not do domestic work VII
when they can get other Wild
work, even though the other WIFI
work pays less. ---GNI
These conditions have TX
raised widespread interest ~ 9
in the proposition of com
munity cooking Notwithstanding the high
prices of food and the scarcity of cooks
the American people like good things to eat just
as we'll as ever The question is where can these
good things be had? large proportion of TWEEN
tieth century married women cannot cook accept
ably and would not cook if they could. A modern
city woman who can cook can hardly be blamed
for unwillingness to spend all her time in home
work. II is an age of ineficiency in restaurant
cooking as in most other things and menu prices
are even higher in proportion than raw material
prices.
Iva LoWther Peters, Phi. D., of the womans diyi-
sion OF the council of national defense, made in
1918 complete survey Of the various cooperative
and community food enterprises of this country
1t was then believed that if the war continued COM
munity kitchens would have to be established in
our larger cities to save food and fuel.
England was already running great many Of
them, with encouraging results and Doctor Peters
not only studied these, but undertook Il thorough
Investigation of the cooperative movement from
the time 1t was born in the eighteenth century.
AS it happened, the signing of the armistice came
just in time to make the survey useless to the
United States food administration, but it is going
to be of great assistance to those individual Amer
leans who are thinking of cooperating with other
individual Americans in bringing down the price of
eating.
An object lesson is a community kitchen that
was opened in 1907 in Carthage, Mo. 1t was To-
Gated in private residence and the various fam
lies of the neghborhood came to it for their meals
Each family furnished it's own table, chairs dishes
linen, silver, thus maintaining its own tastes and
standards To provide the original equipment for
The kitchen an assessment of So per adult and 81 80
per child was made In the beginning there were
60 members, including 10 or IL children. For the
first three months the price OF meals was SO for an
adult and $1.50 for child per week. After the
third month several families stopped coming.
When the number decreased to so the price OF
board was advanced to $3.50 per week AS the
Kitchens patronage decreased and the cost of food
Increased the price of board kept advancing until
finally, in 1911 four years after it's opening, the
Of pyjS
Most Of, the community cooking enterprises sur
veyed by Doctor Peters for the council of national
defense tell practically the same story-a brief
popularity, a brief decline, then extinction.
But the community cooking enterprises tell one
other story and it is this:
The only community cooking enterprises showing
unnlistakable signs of success those where the
central kitchen delivers the cooked meals to the
homes These kitchens are now being established
in several cities.
Chicago and many Of its suburban cities have
their attention on Evanston, Ill.,, just now. Evans
ton is few miles north of Chicago Lake Mich
gan. 1t has about 10000 people. 1t is city Of
homes Many Of the men do business in Chicago.
Evanston is called the "Cty of Churches" is the
seat of Northwestern university and is what may
s be called hgh-cass American small city.
Yes, Evanston is city of homes. There are
streets of dwellings and comparatively few flats
are in evidence. There are trees and lawns. The
houses look If they had kitclens-good, big
rOOiny, ou-1ashloned Kitchens, Where things were
cooked-'pies like mother used to make and
doughnuts to compare even with those of the Sal
walton Army.
But the imagination that sets you to shifting in
the hope of catching delectable cdors from these
old-fashioned kitchens in these Cd-fashoned
homes is ,deusion and snare The kitchens are
there. but they idle painted ship on a
painted ocean. Cause why-there are no cooks
There was time, not long ago. when an occa-
sional cook could be enticed out to Evanston and
pampered into cooking But that time is
past
So Evanston is going to have community kltch-
en- and has made beginning. That's why Chicago
and Illinois are watching her with interest.