Culinary jottings

The loan system is also eloquent of the inefficient equipments of our neighbours. To meet the culinary wants of a dinner party at Robsons', the Dobsons' ice-pail, fishkettle, and sieves, are requisitioned ; and vice versa, when the Dobsons invite their friends, the Robsons' kitchen is pillaged to the extent of a border mould, a ham boiler, and the pastry cutters. I need say no more about equipments : those who are interested in the matter will find a list of kitchen necessaries at page 21. Having, I hope, satisfactorily demonstrated that a kitchen range should surely find a place in the category of things to be " devoutly wished for" by all who take any interest in their cuisine, let me now point out a few of the advantages to be derived from the use of one. After having once set up a good range, the purchaser ought, in the first place, to experience a marked diminution in his fuel account. The native cook's objection " too much firewood taking" is, let me observe, a downright perversion of fact. If properly understood, and utilized to its full extent, the Englisli range, with its one fire, must surely consume less fuel than do the numerous open fires in an Indian cook-room. This is self-evident. According to the method that is followed in the latter system, a separate fire is required for each thing : — for the bath water, the kettle, the oven, the sauce and stew-pans, &c., &c. A range provided with a hot-plate, an oven, and a boiler, supplies with its one fire all these wants at once. Vessels, the contents of which require rapid boiling, are placed over the fire-hole, while things needing slow treatment, like soups, stews, &c., find a place upon the hotplate, or flat surface of the range. The oven is, of course, always kept hot, and the boiler, if correctly filled, must contain an unceasing supply of hot water. If however these opportunities of economy be neglected, and if the cook be permitted to make up little fires, in addition to that of the range, here and there in the kitchen in his native fashion, the saving in fuel will, I grant, be small. I know that the " Duff's cooking ranges," which are set up for the use of British soldiers in the barracks of this Presidency, are generally condemned by the men as requiring too much wood. But then they are not utilized in a way by which economy is attainable. T. Atkins requires no soup ; he is not particular regarding the tenderness of the stew he eats ; and he rarely wants hot water. He finds the oven alone necessary, for " Jack," the barrack cook-boy, can use the chatty, the grid-iron, or the fryingpan, in the verandah, over a small charcoal fire, with sufficient cleverness to satisfy his many masters. Yet the ranges in the hospital kitchens are thoroughly appreciated. Hot water is in constant requisition there, soup must be made daily, and meat has to be very carefully cooked. In order, then, to find English ranges economical as fuel consumers, people who buy them must take care that they are turned to their proper and full account.