FoodNetArchive

Cooking for profit

1886

Page 144

Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The greater number of refrigerators put up for hotels and similar houses are failures through so few people under- standing really what is needed until they have learned by dear experience. A re- frigerator muLt be dry as well as cold, not steaming and with the clammy mois- ture of a cellar. It is often a good scheme where such a humid vault has nearly spoiled the meat in one day to take the meat out and hang it in the open air wrapped in a sheet and so keep it a week longer. Such a failure of a refric^erator as that, is a positive damage instead of benefit. It should be conveniently located where it can be entered every few min- utes, if necessary, without a lopg journey or a chmbing of steps each time, if it is not, a great part of the benefits of having a perfect refrigerator are lost. And then it should be so constructed that the very frequent opening 'andKshutting of the door will not have the effect of driving a warm blast through' the mass of ice and unduly wasting it 'besides keeping the interior of the refrigerator always warm. To meet all requirements some houses have several refrigerators/l- each for a special use. There fcisy the Tremont House at the other end of the avenue with perhaps a dozen, of all sizes, from the large storing rooms opened only once or tvyice a day to the handy little box holding cut meats, close. to, the kitchen range. ICE. JCE. Fruits and Vegetables. Milktmd;' Butter.^; Meats? ' Beef. Plan of a iarge hotel's cold store rooms, fron t \iew These are rooms of good size, say 6x10 and 6 feet high divided from each other; doors opening in front, with one large ice room above ; all ventilated and drained and forming one great ice house with double walls^ filled with pulverized char- coal. This is built in a dry basement. Out at the Bubbling Springs House they have a good ice house that is made to serve for many purposes, and it is built out of doors, just four steps from the kitchen door and therefore quite handy. It is good because it is well constructed with _ thick double walls well filled in and is roomy, perhaps 10 xio inside. It is a two-story building, the ice chamber being above; the ice blocks resting upon a frame of oak scant- ling. A zinc-covered floor leads off the water; the communication with the room below is by apertures along the sides of the floor. The roof is flat and covered deep with gravel. _ A spreading cedar tree partly protects it from the sun'irays. The defects of this ice house are these : It is but one room and it is the one re- frigerator that must be used for every- thing. When the door is open the entire refrigerat^-Dr is open and the hot summer SAN FRANCISCO HOTEL GAZETTES '4