The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-05-07
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
BUR RE AU
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, D. C
COMMUNITY COOKING.

Washington, d. c.. May 3.-The
persistence of high prices for food
and the ever-increasing scarcity of
cooks have recently aroused a desper-
ate interestsin the proportion of COM
munity cooking. The adjective is used
advisedly. No American who wasn't
desperate would consider such a thing
at all.
At least this is the conclusion
reached by the womens division of the
council of national defense after a
complete survey of the various CO.
operative and community food enter
prises that have sprung up from time
to time in this country. This survey
was made by Iva Lowther Peters, Ph.
D., last year when it was believed
that. If the war went on much longer.
community kitchens would have to be
established in all of our large cities
in order to save food and fuel. Eng
land was already running great
mahy of them. with encouraging re-
suits. and Doctor Peters not only
studied these, but undertook thoro
investigation of the cooperative
movement from the time it was born
IN Europe IN the eighteenth century.
AS it happened, the Sizing 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 indi-
ViduaI Americans who are thinking of
cooperating with other individual
Americans in bringing down house,
keeping expenses. You would be sur
prised at the relatively large number
who are contemplating this. WASH
ington is full of small cooperative
enterprises of one kind and another
among the war workerS,-who have or
ganized themselves into groups to
fight the high cost of living. Young
fgirls have discovered that they can
get a great deal more for their money
if they cease patronizfng boarding
houses as individuals and lease apart
ments on the cooperative plan. A
group of six girls for example, recently
rented five-room apartment here for
the price of SIS month. This made
the rent for each of them $3.50
month. The cost of food, divided
among the six. was correspondingly
low. The domestic labor connected
with the apartment was also equally
shared, two of the girls undertaking
it each week. Then they decided they
wanted piano. They found that they
could rent one for $3.50 month, but
| this, divided among the six of them,
was only little over a dollar a month.
These young co-operators are en-
thusiastic over their experiment, de-
claring that they are thus able to
maintain a well-furnished, comfortable
| home for less than they would have
been able to rent six hall bedrooms in
a boarding house.
The same plan. they assert. is being
| tried out with great success by many
| of their married women folks who are
also employed in the government de-
partments. Many married couples
have found that by pooling their re-
sources they can procure a great deal
more in the way of food and furni-
| ture than they can by living as indi-
Vidual families.
| But this is cooperation on a small
scale. OF much greater significance
are the cooperative laundries estab-
lished in various parts Of the country
! during the past few years of domestic
| labor shortage, and the cooperative
| cooking enterprises.
| AS Doctor Peters points out, Amer
| leans are not enthusiastic about COM
munity cooking. Economic condi-
| tions are thrusting it upon them. In
| spite of the accusation that as ma
ton we possess no originality, we at
| least have our peculiarities, and one
[ of these is our deep affection for what
| is termed the privacy of the home"
The trouble is that every year fewer
! people are able to afford homes OF
| their own. This is clearly eXemplified
by the terrific rise of the cheap res
taurant. At first, there were only eX-
pensive restaurants, patronized largely
| by pleasure-seek and boarding
| houses for the unattached and unmar-
| ried. Then came the so-called family
| restaurant, with its table de'hote din
ners and it's high chairs for small
| children. These flOuriShed and spread
rapidly until prices went up, and then
a cheaper kind of eating house was
demanded. The dairy lunchroom and
the cafeteria, serving food at low
cost with a minimum of perquisites
and service, were the answer.
Then, too. as time became more
valuable, housewives were relieved of
some of the heavier burdens by COM
mercial bakeries and commercial
canned goods. But these were not
enough. The cost of living kept stead
lily rising, and women had to seek
more remunerative occupations than
housekeeping in order to keep pace
with it. The apartment house, with
its communal heating plant, and the
delicatessen shop, with its ready-to-
serve food, sprang up to supplant the
traditional American home.
As far back as the early nineties,
economic pressure was felt sufficiently
to suggest the ACCESSIBILITY of COM
munity cooking. Europe, with much
greater population to support in pro-
field of many cooperative cooking en-
terprises, a few of which are flourish
ing today. But here the proposition
was absolutely new, and therefore
open to suspicion.
In 1907, community kitchen was
OpSHeu III NldTlHdSe, Mo II was 10
Gated in a private residence, and the
various families of the neighborhood
came to it for their meals. Each fam
lily furnished its own table, chairs,
dishes. linen, silver. thus maintaining
its own tastes and standards. To pro-
vide the original equipment for the
kitchen an assessment of SO per adult
and $3.50 per child was made. In the
/, beginning there were sixty members
including ten or twelve children. For
: the first three months the price OF
meals was IS for an adult and S150
5 for a child. per week. All precautions
: were taken to make the kitchen as
) homelille as possible. The tables were
placed sufficiently far apart to permit
! the various families to engage in in
innate conversation, and individual
idiosyncrasies were respected After