Plans No. i and 2 are by Mr. Addison Hutton, of Philadelphia, and No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 are by Mr. J. A. Wood, of New York city. THE KITCHEN IN THE HOME, y'J HAT food is to the body the kitchen should be to the home. Indeed, as Brillat-Savarin has said, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are;" so one may say, Show me the kitchen, and I can form a good idea of the home. As the comfort and happi- ness of home do not depend upon vast room and costly furniture, and there is often far more peace and pleasure in a cottage than a palace, so the kitchen need not be a vast apartment in which many cooks are preparing many dishes, such as the wealthy Roman houses of two thousand years ago were famous for. But as every human life depends for its support upon food, so every human home must have a kitchen in which that food is prepared. The person who neglects food soon gets sick, and the home in which the kitchen is neglected is not a healthy or a happy home. It is strange how careless some housewives are in this matter. They are ever so particular that the room they sit in, and in which they receive their friends on state occasions, shall be spotlessly neat and comfortable, but they treat their kitchen as if it were a mere lumber room upon which dusting and cleaning and taste would be thrown away. Yet the kitchen ought to be as neat and clean as any room in the house, and when it is not so, it is a sign of bad manage- ment and carelessness about meals. Yet meals are the best evidences of a well or ill kept home. As one who comes to the table with un - washed hands is very likely to have also a dirty face, so a slovenly cloth, ill-cooked food, broken cups and saucers, greasy plates, and all things huddled together anyhow so as to get the meal over, as if it (395) 396 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. were not meant to afford any pleasure — these are sure tokens that the home is not what it ought to be. The kitchen fire is the centre of warmth to the home, just as food renews Hfe and warmth to the body. To be healthy in mind and body one must eat wholesome food. Too much food or too little ; food that is indigestible and innutritions in itself or becomes so through bad cooking ; eating when one is not hungry because it is the usual hour for eating, and not eating when one is really hungry because it is not the regular hour, are all causes of dyspepsia, an ail- ment that destroys sleep, good temper and pleasant thinking. An immense number of persons in all civilized countries suffer from this frightful nightmare of the stomach, and we Americans suffer more than any other people. The cause of this is not in any difference of constitution and the organs of digestion. It is caused by bad cook- ing, hasty eating, without using our teeth sufficiently upon what we eat, thus leaving to the unfortunate stomach the work meant for the •teeth and jaws as well as its own. American business men will eat too much at one time, and then go too long a time without eating at all. They plead that they have been too busy to think about lunch or dinner ; that they were occupied with a big sale or a big purchase.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Plans No. i and 2 are by Mr. Addison Hutton, of Philadelphia, and No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 are by Mr. J. A. Wood, of New York city. THE KITCHEN IN THE HOME, y'J HAT food is to the body the kitchen should be to the home. Indeed, as Brillat-Savarin has said, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are;" so one may say, Show me the kitchen, and I can form a good idea of the home. As the comfort and happiness of home do not depend upon vast room and costly furniture, and there is often far more peace and pleasure in a cottage than a palace, so the kitchen need not be a vast apartment in which many cooks are preparing many dishes, such as the wealthy Roman houses of two thousand years ago were famous for. But as every human life depends for its support upon food, so every human home must have a kitchen in which that food is prepared. The person who neglects food soon gets sick, and the home in which the kitchen is neglected is not a healthy or a happy home. It is strange how careless some housewives are in this matter. They are ever so particular that the room they sit in, and in which they receive their friends on state occasions, shall be spotlessly neat and comfortable, but they treat their kitchen as if it were a mere lumber room upon which dusting and cleaning and taste would be thrown away. Yet the kitchen ought to be as neat and clean as any room in the house, and when it is not so, it is a sign of bad management and carelessness about meals. Yet meals are the best evidences of a well or ill kept home. As one who comes to the table with un - washed hands is very likely to have also a dirty face, so a slovenly cloth, ill-cooked food, broken cups and saucers, greasy plates, and all things huddled together anyhow so as to get the meal over, as if it (395) 396 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. were not meant to afford any pleasure — these are sure tokens that the home is not what it ought to be. The kitchen fire is the centre of warmth to the home, just as food renews Hfe and warmth to the body. To be healthy in mind and body one must eat wholesome food. Too much food or too little ; food that is indigestible and innutritions in itself or becomes so through bad cooking ; eating when one is not hungry because it is the usual hour for eating, and not eating when one is really hungry because it is not the regular hour, are all causes of dyspepsia, an ailment that destroys sleep, good temper and pleasant thinking. An immense number of persons in all civilized countries suffer from this frightful nightmare of the stomach, and we Americans suffer more than any other people. The cause of this is not in any difference of constitution and the organs of digestion. It is caused by bad cooking, hasty eating, without using our teeth sufficiently upon what we eat, thus leaving to the unfortunate stomach the work meant for the •teeth and jaws as well as its own. American business men will eat too much at one time, and then go too long a time without eating at all. They plead that they have been too busy to think about lunch or dinner ; that they were occupied with a big sale or a big purchase.

The hearthstone; or, Life at home