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.