COOKING CLASSES FOR CHILDREN.
‘I have been reproaching myself,’ was the piteous plaint of Mrs Butler (Fanny Kemble) in her Records of Later Life, ‘and reproving others, and honestly regretting that, instead of Italian and music, I had not learned a little domestic economy, and how much bread, butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and meat ought to be consumed per week by a family of eight persons.’ This is the lesson that great part of the world of women has still to learn. We have allowed mere accomplishments, the fringe and lace of life, to draw our attention from those solid and necessary things which a woman must know if her home is to be comfortable, and which a man knows nothing about except that in their results they make him contentedly happy or utterly miserable. A woman can obtain a more sensible, more thorough, in every way a better education in book-knowledge now than at almost any previous period of our national life; but the gain has been made at a price. Reaction is required, and indeed has set in already. We may see its fruits in the schools of Cookery for Ladies established in all our great towns; in the classes for dressmaking, clear-starching, and ironing; in the newly awakened interest in domestic economy as a science, in the countless books on that subject and on cookery published during the last few years.
The work is by no means done yet. That there are many to be taught and much to be learned, we may gather from a glance at the questions asked on such subjects in our principal ladies’ papers; where but the other day we find a newly married lady wishing to know if, on an income of five hundred pounds a year, without house-rent, she can keep a butler, a cook-housekeeper, a housemaid, a carriage and pair of horses, and a pony and cart!
But we wish to turn now to the wants of another class, and see what has been done and what can be done for our poorer sisters, who sorely need our help in this matter.
If it be true that education is the work of drawing out the mental powers of children so as to fit them thoroughly for their work in life, then we certainly for a time overshot our mark in elementary schools, so far as the girls were concerned. We taught them many things which they did not need to know, and could not learn thoroughly for want of time—much which almost unfitted them for their probable places in life as working-men’s wives; and we left untaught altogether all the womanly and useful arts of life except sewing. Good management has become rarer and rarer in the homes of town working-men; the thrifty, careful housewives seem as units among scores of careless, bad—because ignorant—mismanagers. The early age at which girls go to work in factories increases the evil; and, till lately, nothing which was taught at school helped to remedy it. Here, too, however, the change has begun, and now, in the Board Schools of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, and other large towns, the practical teaching of cookery holds almost as important a place in the education of girls as the teaching of sewing. But the question remains for the managers of voluntary schools: Is cooking worth teaching? Can it be successfully taught in our schools? Will it pay?
These are important questions; but they may all—even the last, which comes very near to the hearts of all managers—be answered, we believe, with a simple ‘Yes.’ Within the writer’s own knowledge, since the establishment of cookery classes in elementary schools, case after case has occurred where a girl of ten, eleven, or twelve has been able to cook food well for a whole family; or in sickness, has been the only person able to make beef-tea or gruel or to beat an egg. No one who has not seen could guess or would believe what the cooking in working-men’s homes too often is, or what waste and extravagance arise out of utter ignorance; and even where the mother has not been laid aside, it has been found that the girl’s knowledge, brought fresh from school, has worked a reformation in the family management. Nor is this all. The influence of the classes upon the girls attending them is very good, especially when the children are drawn from the very lowest ranks. The girls brighten up. Perhaps for the first time they are learning something that really interests them, and seems a link between home-life and school; they learn to weigh, to measure, to calculate quantities, and they see the use of these things. Let no one imagine that a cookery class is not educational. In the hands of a competent teacher, it is an object lesson, an arithmetic lesson, a general-knowledge lesson, and a lesson in common-sense. Even the personal appearance of the children often improves; cleanliness, neatness, orderliness are all encouraged; and in some schools, the effect upon the scholars has been most curiously marked.
If this be so, surely we may admit that cookery is worth teaching. Can it be taught successfully? We believe it can. But before attempting to prove this, we must give a quotation from the Code of March 1882: ‘In schools in which the inspector reports that special and appropriate provision is made for the practical teaching of cookery, a grant of four shillings is made on account of any girl over twelve years of age who has attended not less than forty hours during the school-year at the cooking class, and is presented for examination in the elementary subjects in any standard.’
The forty hours allowed by government are divided into twenty lessons of two hours each, which, taken once a week, can be finished in half a year. The lessons given are found to succeed best if they are alternately demonstration and practice—that is, at one lesson the children watch the teacher, who shows them how to cook any given dishes, carefully explaining the processes and the nature of the food; and at the next lesson the children put what they have learned in practice, and cook the same dishes themselves under the superintendence of the teacher. Fifteen children are sufficient for a practice class, though of course more can attend a demonstration. A very moderate-sized classroom is large enough; and tables can be formed of boards on tressels or on the backs of desks. Many classrooms already contain a range large enough for all purposes; but if not, one can be fitted up at a cost of three pounds, or a portable stove can be had for thirty shillings. The utensils are few and simple; but of course the first cost of them is considerable—about five pounds.[1] A teacher is supplied by any of the principal training Schools of Cookery for a fee of five pounds for twenty lessons and her travelling expenses. If several schools in the same neighbourhood take lessons during the same period, this last item can be much reduced.
The children work in five sets of three each. They are taught all the simple processes of cooking, and the reason in any given case for using one in preference to another. They are furnished with printed recipes for each dish they cook; they are taught—and this is most important—to clean properly and to put away all the utensils they use. They are questioned as they proceed, to see that they understand what they are doing; and at the end of the course, they go through both a verbal and a practical examination; and certificates are awarded by the School of Cookery, independent of examinations by Her Majesty’s inspector.
Here are a few sample recipes; and it must be remembered that special pains are taken to suit the dishes taught to the requirements of the district, many ways of cooking fish being taught in seaports, for instance; while in country places, vegetables, bacon, and eggs are more used.
Brown Lentil Soup.—Half-pound brown lentils, 1½d.; one carrot, four cloves, an ounce and a half of dripping, 1½d.; two quarts of water; small bunch sweet herbs, three onions, pepper and salt, 1d. Wash the lentils well in several waters; leave to soak in two quarts of water for twenty-four hours. Slice and fry the onions in the dripping; let them take a nice brown, but not burn. Cut up the carrot into small pieces; fry it lightly also. Now put in the lentils and the two quarts of water in which they were steeped; add the herbs and the cloves, but not the pepper and salt. Boil all for three hours, adding more water, to make up the waste from boiling. Add pepper and salt to taste. If possible, put the soup through a coarse wire-sieve.
Savoury Rice.—Rice, half-pound, 2d.; dripping, half-ounce, 1½d.; two onions, one carrot, pepper and salt, 1d.; cloves, parsley, and thyme, ½d. Wash the rice, throw it into a saucepan full of boiling water and a little salt. Add an onion stuck with four cloves and the carrot cut up. Let it boil fast for fifteen or twenty minutes. Take care there is plenty of water. To try the rice, take a grain and rub it between the thumb and finger. When it will rub quite away, drain off all the water, and let the rice dry before the fire. While the rice is boiling, put half an ounce of dripping in a saucepan on the fire, and when quite hot, fry in it a sliced onion. Take a tablespoonful of flour, sprinkle it over the fried onion in the pan, stirring it with a spoon. When the flour is brown, add half a pint of water, the parsley and thyme well chopped, with salt and pepper. Boil it up; stir in the rice, and serve.
Exeter Stew.—Meat, 9d.; flour, 1½d.; suet, 1d.; dripping, 1d.; herbs and onion, 1½d. Put into a pan two ounces of dripping; set it on the fire; and when it is quite hot and a faint blue smoke arises from it, put in an onion, cut small. Let it brown well; then add a tablespoonful of flour, and when that is browned also, one pint of cold water, pepper, salt, four cloves, and a little mace. Cut one pound of beef into small pieces; put them in, and let it simmer, not boil, for two hours. Put in a bowl a quarter-pound of flour; a little salt, pepper, chopped parsley, thyme, and marjoram; two ounces of finely chopped suet, and half a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Make into a paste with cold water; form into small balls, and drop them into the stew half an hour before it is wanted.
Christmas Pudding.—Flour, one pound, 2d.; baking-powder, a teaspoonful and a half, ¼d.; ginger, half a teaspoonful, ¼d.; suet, quarter-pound, 2d.; treacle, half-pound, 1d.; raisins, two ounces, ½d.; currants, two ounces, ½d.; milk (skim), ½d. Chop the suet finely; stir all the dry ingredients well together; add the treacle, warmed, and about a teacupful of skim-milk. Stir well; put it into a greased tin or basin; cover with paper; steam it in a pan of boiling water for an hour and a half or two hours.
No one who has seen how well these and many other dishes are cooked by the children entirely without assistance at their practical examination—no one who has heard how well and intelligently they answer questions on the subject, can doubt that cooking can be taught successfully in our schools. The one question remains, Does it pay? The outlay is of two kinds—the primary outlay, which will not recur, for stove and utensils; and the recurring expenses of teacher’s salary, food, and fuel. In many places, friends of education, learning the need, have fitted up classrooms with all that was required at a cost of about seven to eight pounds. In Liverpool, the Education Council offered to fit up six classrooms in voluntary schools as centres at which several neighbouring schools could attend; but as many poor schools are without such benevolent friends, the Northern Union of Schools of Cookery has petitioned the Science and Art Department to give grants for this purpose.
The teacher’s salary, as already mentioned, is about five pounds, with a varying sum in addition for travelling expenses. The average cost of the food to be cooked is about thirty-seven shillings for the whole course. The additional amount of fuel used is very trifling; therefore, the expenses stand: Teacher’s salary, £5; food, £1, 17s.; travelling expenses, say 10s.—Total, seven guineas. To meet these expenses, there are the following sources of income: The government grant of four shillings a head for fifteen girls, £3; extra pence paid by the children for their cooking lessons, twopence each for twenty lessons, £2, 10s. This payment cannot be enforced; but it is found that in most cases, even among the poorest, it is willingly paid, as the parents value the lessons. Sale of food cooked, at cost price, £1, 17s.—Total, seven guineas.
It may be mentioned that the food sells more readily among the very poor children than among those who are better off. There is little or no difficulty in disposing of it without loss.
It will be seen that this calculation allows of no margin whatever. If all goes well, there is neither profit nor loss. But it cannot be expected that everything will be perfectly successful; the children will miss a lesson now and then, or some dish will be spoiled. We would wish, therefore, to remind managers that there is another source of income open to them. It is both easier and better to teach cookery and domestic economy together than separately; and every girl who in the cooking class is earning a grant of four shillings, may also earn another four shillings if she passes in domestic economy, without any additional outlay or cost. Only, we would urge all managers to be careful always to secure a properly qualified teacher, holding a diploma from some good School of Cookery, and trained to teach children. Lastly, the experience of the manager of a large Roman Catholic school in a very poor district may be quoted. ‘I would hardly hesitate to say’—we give his own words—‘that not only will a class of cookery in elementary schools pay itself, but will even become a pecuniary advantage; and for this reason, parents look with much favour upon the teaching of cookery; and whereas it is too often the case that they withdraw their children from school the moment they are free to do so, and so prevent a school from receiving a grant for them by their passing an examination, I can say from experience that my class of cookery has been the means of retaining at school several children who would otherwise have left, and for each of them I expect a substantial grant. I have also observed that since the introduction of this subject, the children who attend this class attend much more regularly.’
With this testimony we may conclude, hoping that some at least of those who glance at this paper may agree with the words of an old working-woman, a grandmother, and herself a model of thrift, care, and good management, who, when the cookery classes at the Board Schools were mentioned before her, exclaimed: ‘Deed, and that’s the sensiblest thing I ever heard of them Boards doing!’ and may therefore be willing to do a little, either by giving time, money, or influence, to help forward this good and greatly needed work.