Community Kitchen

COMMUNITY KITCHEN. In the United States there has been, since 191o, an increasing tendency on the part of Americans to take their meals outside of their homes, with the growth of the community kitchen and its corollary the com munity dining room.

Community Kitchens and Dining Rooms.

Many reasons may be assigned for this movement. In the first place it was a natural step in view of the changes in the home itself : the urban home had become smaller, for every square inch of floor area, every cubic inch of space, cost money in rent, and consequently the functions of the home were limited so as to effect a reduction of space. The home kitchen shrank first to the kitchenette, and is now in process of vanishing entirely. Even where the space for an elaborate kitchen is available, the problem of getting suit able servants is so troublesome as to induce many to get along with a minimum of domestic service, and, as the mistress of the house is herself less willing to be a kitchen drudge than formerly, many meals are taken outside the home, particularly those of an elaborate nature. Private hospitality is more and more offered in hired hotel space in preference to the home. Banquets and other special functions are easily handled in public dining rooms, and involve little responsibility on the part of the host and hostess. The emancipation of women is another factor. Many women have succeeded in establishing themselves, professionally or com mercially, before marriage. They prefer financial independence to keeping house. The small, compact, efficiently arranged apart ment is the result, with meals away from the home.

These factors are intensified by the constantly rising standards of living and by the greatly improved marketing technique which has stimulated a demand for many possessions previously non existent or rare. Demands upon the family income have ad vanced, encroaching upon the former budget allotment for rent and servants. Small and servantless homes come as a natural sequence. If even then the income is too meagre, the modern woman has no lesitation in aiding her husband to double it by taking a position herself. Another blow to the home as the chief or sole source of prepared food has been dealt by the automobile and touring habit. It is estimated that in 1910 there were, in the United States, less than 35o,000 automobiles; in 1925 over 17,000,000 were registered. Such an increase in the use of a personal means of conveyance with a day's travel radius of, say, 200M. could not but have its effect on the food habits of the nation. "Automobile" business is considered a substantial part of the total business of hotels and restaurants.

The hotel kitchen, like its domestic counterpart, has had its troubles with its personnel, and for similar reasons. Working, however, on a larger scale and increasingly on standardized prod ucts, it can make readier use of machines as a substitute for labour. The modern quantity kitchen is thinly staffed but splendidly equipped. Washing-machines for dishes, glassware, and silver, each adapted to the task in hand, enable two men to do the work of ten and to do it better. There is less breakage, the silver bears an enhanced sheen, and the bacteria count is re duced 9o%. Dirt and filth, once the bugbears of any but the most expensive dining places, are now, perhaps, more rare in hotels than in the home. There are also the great mixers which, for example, beat up a bushel of mashed potatoes or a gallon of cream with equal facility, the steam-cookers, the potato peelers and a host of smaller indispensables that save time, labour, and space where food is cooked on a wholesale scale. Electricity has helped in cookery and is now applied to refriger ation. (H. B. M.)