It is of the utmost importance that cupboards and other places where
food is stored should be kept free from dirt and scraps of food. Ants,
cockroaches, mice, and other pests infest dirty places where food is
kept, and render a house unfit for human habitation. It requires
constant care and watchfulness on the part of the housewife to keep the
cupboards clean. She must look over the shelves daily, wiping them off
whenever they need it, and giving them a thorough cleaning at least once
a week.
The housekeeper should know how to care for the various utensils used
and understand the simplest and best methods of keeping them clean.
Utensils should never be put in the cupboards until perfectly clean and
dry. Particular attention should be paid to the care of milk vessels.
Pans, pails, pitchers, or bottles in which milk has been kept, should be
rinsed in cold water, washed in strong, clean soap-suds, rinsed in
clean, boiling water, and dried in the sun. If utensils have become
discoloured or badly coated, they should be specially scoured. If
something has been burned in a kettle, the kettle should be cleaned by
filling with cold water, adding washing-soda, and boiling briskly for
half an hour; after that a slight scraping ought to remove the burned
portion. If the kettle is not yet clean, the process should be repeated.
If a kettle has been used directly over a wood fire and becomes
blackened with soot, it should be rubbed off with a newspaper and then
with an old cloth. Kettles should be dried well before being put away.
With proper care they seldom become rusty. If an iron kettle has rusted,
it should be rubbed with kerosene and ashes, then washed in strong, hot,
soda-water, rinsed in clear hot water, and dried on the stove. If a
kettle is very rusty, it should be covered thoroughly with some sort of
grease, sprinkled with lime, and left overnight. In the morning it
should be washed out with hot soda-water and rinsed in clear, hot water.
A new kettle is generally rusty, and should be greased thoroughly inside
and out and allowed to stand for two days; then washed in hot
soda-water.
Bath-brick should be used for scouring iron utensils and steel knives
and forks. If iron pots and frying-pans are scrubbed with a piece of
bath-brick each time they are used and then washed in hot soap-suds,
they can be kept in good condition. Tinware and steel knives and forks
may be cleaned by scouring with ashes, but only fine ashes should be
used on tinware. The brown stains on granite utensils should be scoured
off; and this ware should be carefully handled, in order to avoid
chipping. Coffee-pots and tea-pots should be cleaned daily, the grounds
removed, and the interior of the pots washed out thoroughly. The
tea-kettle should be washed and dried overnight and left uncovered to
air.