Every householder knows that the kitchen fire, whether it be an old-fashioned open fireplace, or a modern kitchener of any improved construction, is a very costly affair. He knows that its wasteful work produces the chief item of his coal bill, but somehow or other he is helpless under its infliction. If he has given any special attention to the subject he has probably tried three or four different kinds without finding any notable relief. Why is this? I venture to make a reply that will cover 90 per cent, or probably 99 per cent of these cases, viz., that he has never considered the main source of waste, which Rumford so clearly defines as above, and which was eliminated in all the kitchens that he erected.
Let us suppose the case of a household of ten persons, but which in the ordinary course of English hospitality sometimes entertains twice that number. What do we find in the kitchen arrangements? Simply that there is one fireplace suited for the maximum requirements, i.e., sufficient for twenty, even though that number may not be entertained more than half a dozen times in the course of a year. To cook a few rashers of bacon, boil a few eggs, and boil a kettle of water for breakfast, a fire sufficient to cook for a dinner party of twenty is at work. This is kept on all day long, because it is just possible that the master of the house may require a glass of grog at bedtime. There may be dampers and other devices for regulating this fire, but such regulation, even if applied, does very little so long as the capacity of the grate remains, and as a matter of ordinary fact the dampers and other regulating devices are neglected altogether; the kitchen fire is blazing and roaring to waste from 6 or 7 A.M. to about midnight, in order to do about three hours and a half work, i.e., the dinner for ten, and a nominal trifle for the other meals.
In Rumford’s kitchens, such as those he built for the Baron de Lerchenfeld and for the House of Industry at Munich, the kitchener is a solid block of masonry of work-bench height at top, and with a deep bay in the middle, wherein the cook stands surrounded by his boilers, steamers, roasters, ovens, etc., all within easy reach, each one supplied by its own separate fire of very small dimensions, and carefully closed with non-conducting doors. Each fire is lighted when required, charged with only the quantity of fuel necessary for the work to be done, and then extinguished or allowed to die out.
It is true that Rumford used wood, which is more easily managed in this way than coal. If we worked as he did, we might use wood likewise, and in spite of its very much higher price do our cooking at half its present cost. This would effect not merely “smoke abatement” but “smoke extinction” so far as cooking is concerned. But the lighting of fires is no longer a troublesome and costly process as in the days of halfpenny bundles of firewood. To say nothing of the improved fire-lighters, we have gas everywhere, and nothing is easier than to fix or place a suitable Bunsen or solid flame burner under each of the fireplaces (an iron gaspipe, perforated below to avoid clogging, will do), and in two or three minutes the coals are in full blaze; then the gas may be turned off. The writer has used such an arrangement in his study for some years past, and starts his fire in full blaze in three minutes quite independent of all female interference.
I have no doubt that ultimately gas will altogether supersede coal for cooking; but this and all other scientific improvements in domestic comfort and economy must be impossible with the present generation of uneducated domestics, whose brains (with few exceptions) have become torpid and wooden from lack of systematic exercise during their period of growth.
THE “CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE.”
A great deal has been spoken and written on this subject, but practically nothing has been done. At one time I shared the general belief in its possibility, and accordingly examined a multitude of devices for smoke-consuming, and tried several of the most promising, chiefly in furnaces for metallurgical work, for steam boilers and stills. None of them proved satisfactory, and I was driven to the conclusion that smoke-consumption is a delusion, and further, that economical consumption of smoke is practically impossible. When smoke is once formed, the cost of burning it far exceeds the value of the heat that is produced by the combustion of its very flimsy flocculi of carbon. It is a fiend that once raised cannot be exorcised, a Frankenstein that haunts its maker, and will not be appeased.
To describe in detail the many ingenious devices that have been proposed and expensively patented and advertised for this object, would carry me far beyond the intended limits of this paper. I must not even attempt this for a selected few, as even among them there is none that can be pronounced satisfactory.
The common idea is that if the smoke be carried back to the fire that produced it, and made to pass through it again, a recombustion or consumption of the smoke will take place. This is a mistake, as a little reflection will show. First, let us ask why did this particular fire produce such smoke? Everybody now-a-days can answer this question, as we all know that smoke is a result of imperfect combustion, and, knowing this, it can easily be understood that to return the carbonic acid and excess of carbon to the already suffocated fire can only add smother to smotheration, and make the smoky fire more smoky still.