PRIVATE VERSUS COMMUNITY KITCHENS.
There is a future here for various new kinds of culinary work. But for one kind, it is to be hoped, there is no future, and that is the community kitchen—a single kitchen for a number of families. This plan has been tried in various countries, always without success. Berlin had its "Einküchenhaus"—for a time. The New York "Independent" of March 6, 1912, contains an account of a similar experiment in America. A dozen women presided in succession with invariably disastrous results.
It is impossible in such a case to suit the taste and purse of every family. In a large restaurant it is possible to cater to every patron's wishes, but where there are half-a-dozen or a dozen families clubbed together, some are willing to pay for fresh eggs and poultry and unsalted butter, for example, while others would prefer to save the money and live on storage eggs and poultry, salted butter, wilted or canned vegetables, and so on. There is sure to be constant squabbling; troubles arise from feeing, bribing, and a hundred other sources. No; most of us want to be able to order our own meats, vegetables and fruits, and have them cooked and served as we like them.
"It was the fashion of forty years ago," wrote E. P. Powell in 1904, "for progressive economists to discuss a reform village, built in squares, one house on each corner, and a community boarding-hall and kitchen in the center of each square. Some experiments were made along such lines, but they fell to pieces over the table question. It is not easy for four families to agree on a menu three times a day, and on the qualities of the cooking. As a rule every woman must be mistress of her own kitchen."
The German delicatessen store (now acclimated in all our cities) with its cooked cold meats, pickles, cheeses, and diverse fancy groceries, is likely to be the nearest approach to a community kitchen (nearly every block has one) that the future will know; and the delicatessen store is only an appendix to the private kitchen.
Nothing could be more ridiculous than the wails of certain writers over the "waste of time" in having the cooking done separately for each family. There are plenty of persons in search of profitable employment to supply the demand; and surely, it is infinitely more human, more intellectual, more enjoyable to practise the noble and useful art of cooking than to be merely one cog in a huge machine for making shoes or garments, or cigarettes, as are hundreds of thousands of factory workers, most of whom could lead much happier and more elevated lives if they were cooks.
"The gourmet distrusts dishes provided by pastry cooks and caterers," wrote the late Theodore Child; and this is another of the many reasons why every family that can afford it should have its own cook. I have never yet eaten ice cream, even in the most expensive places, as rich and luscious as the cream we make at home. Excellent jams and jellies are now for sale in the markets; but in your own kitchen you and your helpers can make jams and jellies, and preserves that are better still—made of material you have seen, and sweetened, or otherwise seasoned, to your individual taste.
The word home-made is still the synonym of gastronomic excellence. When a dealer wants to specially commend his offerings, he labels or advertises them as "home-made."
Owing partly to the present difficulty of getting good cooks, and partly to the selfish disinclination of too many American women to do as much at home for their husband or father as the husband or father does for them in the office, thousands of homes have been abandoned in favor of apartment hotels. How these families can endure the insipid, monotonous, unappetizing meals served in these (for the most part expensive) places, is to me incomprehensible.
A reaction will come in favor of private kitchens, and it will be greatly accelerated by the latest improvements, now to be considered.