A kitchen may be very prettily fitted up in the Swiss style, with unpainted deal employed decoratively whenever there is a fit occasion for it. The back of the dresser may be made of narrow boards, each lath cut out uniformly in a pattern at the top, forming a band of ornament. The shelves will look very nice with a border of fretwork, in sycamore, placed either above or below their edges. They are more easily cleaned if the ornamental border is fastened on like barge-boarding, but this plan is not so well adapted for hooks.
Mottoes in old English character, which is similar to the German Gothic type used in Switzerland, form an appropriate decoration to the cornice of the room.
The tables and chairs must be of unpainted wood, plain, but of good form. All hooks and bars, or whatever cannot conveniently be made of wood, should be of wrought iron. This gives a good opportunity for having window-bars and fastenings, or even a balcony, made in ornamental iron work. The window-curtains will be of Swiss muslin.
Oval wooden pails, with a board on one side left tall and cut out for a handle, made in various sizes for water, milk, etc., are as useful as they are suitable to the style adopted; and baskets may be made like those carried by the Swiss mountaineers at their backs. A cuckoo clock and a few hooks of chamois horn carry out the effect. Characteristic ornaments, such as paintings of Swiss scenery, and flowers in wooden frames, wood carvings on brackets, wooden bears as matchboxes, wooden screw nutcrackers, should be collected during visits to Switzerland; and a Swiss costume will be found as practically useful as any dress the young cook can wear, and will add a great charm and liveliness to the scene.
But be the style adopted what it may, and it is well to exercise individual tastes, it need not be made expensive, or not more so than an ugly kitchen. Thought and care should combine to make it cheerful and attractive, in order that the real work to be done in it may not have a depressing influence: that the lady, or her assistant, may not pine for the greater excitement of the Row or the rink. The kitchen window should be well furnished with scented plants; and in case of having no garden, pots of parsley, mint, and thyme may be grown successfully on a balcony. Every house might possess its sweet basil plant, and every Isabella might rear it in as elegant a pot as that in Holman Hunt's picture. Plentiful use should be made of it in cookery; it is one of the best of herbs. Indeed, we too much neglect all these aromatic plants, the hygienic value of their fragrance alone being very great. Some girls might save the small fortune they now spend in opopanax and patchouly, by cultivating lavender and thyme for their wardrobes; while balm and bergamot are sweet enough to make the kitchen smell like Araby the Blest.
China ginger-jars will be found good for preserving dried herbs for winter use.
The sink is a very important part of the kitchen furniture. This, in our model kitchen, should be a shallow bath of Marezzo marble, which is a strong, durable composition, finely coloured. We should select it of a colour harmonizing with the general style of the kitchen. The sink must rest upon two columns, or short shafts, of the Marezzo marble, hollowed down the centre, to allow of the water running freely away at both ends of the sink, each tube being stopped by a bell-trap. It must stand on one side of the kitchen fire-place, so that a pipe and tap may readily communicate with the self-supplying boiler. There must also be the usual pipe to conduct cold water from the cistern.
The best possible sink would be of real marble, highly polished; but the cost of this would preclude its use in our economical household. Enamelled slate would be cheaper and very good, and it would retain its polish better than the Marezzo marble, or japanned metal might answer the purpose pretty well. But doubtless a demand for such articles would cause Messrs. Minton's factory to produce a sink in strong glazed earthenware which should be finely coloured as well as elegant in form, making, indeed, an object as beautiful as a Roman porphyry bath. Many of the public washing fountains in Italy, or the south of France, would serve as models for this purpose. One of the most important points to be attended to is that it should be highly polished, as grease would be more easily removed from it, and it would be cleaner.
Beneath the sink is the pot for scraps and refuse, of which a small quantity is inevitable, unless there is a garden, or poultry are kept; in which cases all rubbish may be turned to account, the only exception being fish-bones and scraps, which, under all circumstances, must be burned.
The refuse dish should be of earthenware to match the sink, or of terra-cotta, glazed inside. It must be made in two compartments, one for usable scraps and one for waste. Each division should have a cover with a small air-hole in it, both covers made sufficiently heavy not to be upset or opened by the cat; and there must be a handle to lift it out once a week, or oftener, when its contents are disposed of, either as gift, or to some person calling for it regularly. In all economical families the dripping is consumed either for frying, or else clarified for cakes, etc. Cinders, of course, are to be sifted in the covered cinder-sieve, and the ashes only allowed in the dust-bin. By care on this point, seven-tenths of all fevers might be prevented.