The Saving of Meat.
I will confine myself to the question of meat. When roasting with coal the loss of weight on a joint is anything between 25 per cent. and 35 per cent. A really bad cook who gallops the meat and does not baste it can effect a shrinkage of even 50 per cent.; but, fortunately, in this land of bad cooks there are few who sin so deeply as this. Twenty-five per cent., however, is quite a common loss, and even good and careful cooks will account for a 20 per cent. loss. In proof of this weigh the meat before and after cooking.
It is the boast of those who cook by electricity that they reduce this loss to 8 per cent. Even when cooking electrically it would be easy to cause a shrinkage of 10 to 15 per cent.; while, on the other hand, very clever cooks will bring down the shrinkage to 5 per cent. Allowing, then, to be fair, a loss of 25 per cent. when cooking by coal (that is a quarter) and a loss of 10 per cent, when cooking by electricity, you have a saving of 15 per cent. on your meat bill. Put this at £50 a year, and you have saved £7 10s. on that item alone.
In one case when cooking on a large scale it was found that plates of meat which had cost 5d. could be provided for 4d., a point which the authorities responsible for the running of canteens for troops and munition workers might do well to note.