If the space for keeping utensils is small, their number must be kept down to the minimum. Even with ample space, it is well now and then to weed out superfluous or inadequate utensils, for each adds a straw's weight to the work of the kitchen. It is only a straw, but you know what happened to the camel.
One woman who entertains a large family at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and at other times has a household of two with an intermittent maid, buys each year at the five and ten cent store the large utensils and serving dishes needed for the Thanksgiving dinner. She keeps them until after the Christmas dinner, then gives them away and returns to her usual outfit of small things. Perhaps you ask, why not use the big ones all the time instead of having two sizes? Because they take more time, more food, and in the case of the serving dishes, make a poor appearance. A household which constantly changes in number needs two sizes, one small and one large, of each thing in frequent use. Of certain things there should be two or three in any kitchen; such are, bowls, mixing spoons, platters, paring knives, saucepans and double boilers. It is well to get such things of different kinds and of graduated sizes because they are for various uses.
Materials.—The kitchen is prettier if all the utensils are of the same colour and in general of the same material. Expense and practical usefulness, however, must be considered before good looks. If the kitchen is blue, do not buy a bowl with a pink band round it, a cake turner with a red handle and a brown agate pot, when you can perfectly well get them in suitable colours. On the contrary, if the brown pot is a more convenient shape and size than a blue or white one, get the brown one; if a thick iron frying pan cooks food better than a white agate one, take the iron one.
Enamelled utensils are neat, pretty, seldom acted upon by chemicals in the food and are cared for more easily than those of any other material. They are expensive, but last well if they are not abused.
Tin articles are light to handle and cheap, but soon become discoloured and require a good deal of scouring to keep them in fair condition.
Iron utensils are heavy, hard to keep clean and rarely necessary.
Pots and pans are now frequently made of aluminum. It is a luxury to lift them and they are pretty, but they are also costly and easily injured.
Copper utensils have become rare; their chief recommendation is beauty. A College kitchen in Oxford glowing with rows and rows of copper platters and dish covers and pots and kettles remains in my memory as a glory and a splendour. But, my stars! what generations of scourers have toiled to see their crooked images appear in those red-gold surfaces!
Copper articles have a disadvantage beyond requiring much care. If used for food they should be tin lined and the lining kept in good condition, for sometimes chemicals in food form a poisonous combination with the copper. Our ancestors did not have to worry about copper pots. When they were poisoned, they drowned a witch or went on a pilgrimage, and recovered or not according to their constitutions.