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.
The Cost of Current.
We must now consider the question of cost of current, and here we are in many cases up against a difficulty, for unless current can be obtained at a reasonable price the use of electricity in the household is not a paying proposition. Speaking without inside knowledge of the workings of the power companies, it would appear that they are greatly to blame that electricity is not in more general use. Apparently few of them make any effort to induce their customers to use current for aught but lighting purposes. The offer of a flat rate of 1d. per unit for all domestic purposes, added to an energetic pushing of electrical apparatus and demonstration of its value, would result in an enormous betterment in the conditions of domestic labour and in the purifying of the air of towns.
There are, of course, electric supply companies who are more enterprising—Marylebone, West Ham, and Poplar, for instance, and some provincial town companies. The engineers of these supply companies have formed what is known as the "Point Five" Club, their object being to supply current for heating and cooking at ½d. per unit. Still, when Marylebone represents the only district in highly rented residential parts of London willing to do this, I think I am not unjust when I say that the electrical companies are sadly behind the times in their methods.
It is said that the current used for cooking (allowing for late dinner) should be 1 unit per day per person, and that the amount should diminish with the number of persons cooked for, until, when cooking for 100 persons, the saving would be as much as 50 per cent. This, naturally, depends to some extent upon the cook, who can, if she will, waste current and spoil food by cooking it at too high a temperature; for, as all cooks know, after the first ten minutes' cooking in a hot oven the meat should be cooked quite gently. Those of my readers who are interested in the question of electrically fitted houses can see the various utensils, stoves, etc., at the showrooms of the makers; they can attend demonstrations at Tricity House, 48, Oxford Street (the Electrical Restaurant); and also add to their knowledge of the subject by the perusal of "Electric Cooking, Heating, and Cleaning," an excellent book, published by Constable and Co., price 3s. 6d. net.
At Tricity House, a most popular restaurant near the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street, all the cooking is done by electricity, and a clever lady demonstrator will show the enquirer exactly how the various apparatus is used.