FoodNetArchive

The housewife's referee

1898

Page 14

Presented as published in 1898. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The Patent Domestic Draining Table is one of the latest patents, and is a most convenient appliance. It is a table and rack combined, and consists of a grooved table top supported on four legs with an upright rack at the back, and four little brackets at the sides all made in wood. The table top slopes towards the front, and all the water runs down the grooves into a channel in the front edge, and thence runs out into a basin placed to catch the drips. The USEFUL ADJUNCTS TO THE KITCHEN 19 rack will hold eighteen plates or saucers, each fitting into a groove in a bar, running lengthwise of the table, so they rest securely ; the brackets hold decanters. It takes up no IN USE. FOLDED. room, for the table is made to fold up into such a compass as will allow it to hang on a hook in the wall. The legs close up as the rack folds down. The brackets turn under. A complete set of tea things for six persons can be drained on this small table. Decanters, and every kind of wine glass may be safely drained on it, and ladies can wash their old bric-a-brac in safety and comfort. The price is five shillings, and it should be in every house. The Sectional Saucepan is a capital culinary f appliance, for how often cooks grumble at one saucepan monopolising the whole fire for boiling, etc. ! To solve this difiiculty a twin saucepan has been invented which will be found a great convenience. The Sectional Saucepan is a saucepan split in two, each distinct from the other, and cooking a separate vegetable, etc., but both fitting together tightly, and occupying no more space on the fire than the old round pan. The pans can be used separately, and for use over open fires ; they have this decided advantage — they can be dropped right down on the surface of the coals, and the contents brought to boil much quicker than in the fidl-sized pans which cannot usually be dropped below the bars. The two fit into one cooking hole on the modern kitchener, and are made with wells for such use, when desired, for greater steadiness. They are also used together over a single round burner on gas stoves, a decided economy for those who use 20 THE housewife's KEFEREB gas cookers. Two wire frying baskets are necessary, and stewpans that will fit them. Daw's-Tatent Drying Rack is a most usetul contrivance for drying crockery. It is designed with the intention of superseding the wiping-cloth, and apart from the considera- tion of the expense of clean cloths, it is welcome as alto- gether abolishing any possibility of the use of dirty rags. It is made to hold china and glass, from the largest dish in the dinner service, to the smallest liqueur glass. It is a rack five feet high, occupying a square foot of ground, but is capable of drying one hundred pieces. The drainer is so ar- ranged that one piece cannot drip on another. I like this system of draining instead of wiping. If plenty of clean water is handy, the wiping-cloth, when clean, is useless, and when dirty, as is often the case, simply undoes the work. In the usual old drying racks, the dishes and plates are sluiced well in cold water in the sinks, and put into the racks pell-mell, but this invention not only allows each piece its own niche, but allows the cups and glasses to be treated in the same way. It effects a great saving of time and obviates the risk of breakages.