COOKING BY ELECTRIC CURRENT
The electric stove is the most dependent on geography of all your
kitchen implements. Because it consumes a large amount of electricity,
the rate of this as a fuel will decide whether or not you can use the
electricity-consuming stove. This decision, in turn, is affected by the
rate of electricity for cooking in every different locality in the
country.
The vogue of the electric stove is due to the convenience and sureness
with which the cooking is done, the control which may be exercised and
the positiveness of results. Furthermore, the cleanliness, lack of odors
and gases, and the easy installation and convenience of placing are
other important reasons why the electric stove has come to stay, if
electric companies co-operate with the stove companies to give a cooking
rate.
Its vogue, too, is largely due from the fact that in the maidless home
housekeepers find electricity simpler, cooler and cleaner, if more
expensive and not quite as rapid as gas.
POINTS ABOUT THE STOVES
As with the gas and wood stove, the main principles must apply in
picking them out, with but few additions and omissions. The electric
stove is not bothered with its own deterioration by the combustion
inside it of oils, woods, coals, cokes, etc., but has, of course, to be
well wired, rust protected and insulated against mishap and fire.
Accidents are contingent on anything that uses any fuel. With electric
stoves it is unnecessary to have large or small storage systems, which
makes electricity a convenient fuel for the small “rabbit hutches,” in
which the wealthiest and poorest are forced to live in these days of
homelessness.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Estate Stove Co._
THREE LITTLE FINGERS FIT IN THREE LITTLE HOLES AND THE CONNECTION IS
MADE]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Bramhall Deane Co._
HERE THE STOVE LID IS SET ON A LITTLE ROUND PLATFORM ALREADY ATTACHED
AND EASILY DISENGAGED
ELECTRIC RANGE]
Then again, if you employ electricity, whether it is more costly or not,
you do not have to put in so strenuous a flue system when building a
house, but just a hood over the stove as a vent to carry off cooking
odors and a special wiring system. You do away, too, with the draughts
necessary for coal or wood types and all the contingent engineering
niceties, which harass and wear you if they are not perfection.
The body of the stove should be built of non-rusting iron. Armco
rust-resisting iron is often used in the best grades of stoves. It is
free from impurities which invite corrosion and rust and has proved a
valuable material out of which to make a good stove body. On some stoves
the tops are made of gray iron castings which, with the black body and
its polished iron trimmings, make a very stately and harmonious article
without sacrificing anything of practical utility.
The top of any stove is the place upon which are placed the utensils for
frying, boiling, etc. This is true whether the fuel be coal, gas,
electricity or what-not.
The top of the electric stove is no variant to this rule. It has the
spots upon which to place the utensils and these spots are called the
heating units. Heat, of course, is communicated in varying degrees
between the units. These units are of cast or wrought iron. The tops of
any electric stove must be of cast iron or some such non-warping rigid
material which takes readily to cleaning. The heating element should be
safe from molestations and the top of the stove must be smoothness
itself to hold the utensils with perfect ease and steadiness. The units’
wire connection must be enclosed to protect the heating element. The top
of the usual electric stove has about four cooking “holes” or plates, or
heating elements. In some cases the electric connection is made by the
heating units being equipped with pluglike sets or fingers (as your
ordinary lamp plug) and fitting into a socket under itself. In other
cases, if it be a three-heat stove, the three wires are directly
connected with the heating element and all that has to be done in case
of bad connection is to raise the heating element and unscrew the wires.
In other styles when bad connection occurs you must search the surface
beneath the plug, a little more complicated operation, but still the
manufacturers of this feel that it is an added protection to wiring.
The surface units, too, must come off easily so that no extra tool is
needed to pick them up.
OVENS AND BROILERS
There are two kinds of ovens used in the electric stove, from the point
of view of heat retention. One of them does not retain the heat
completely enough to call itself a fireless cooker oven yet does retain
heat to a great degree and cooks well after a little time on the third
heat or low heat. The other style guarantees a fireless system of
cooking when the electricity is cut off.
Strange as it may seem, the largest and most elaborate and the most
expensive stoves are not made with the retention-heat method because, no
doubt, the persons that can pay about $1000 or even $700 for a stove
have chefs and don’t really care whether they use more or less
electricity.
For ordinary use, however, and for the large stove which costs to-day
around $140 to $225, it is well to have the retained-heat oven, the oven
so insulated as to keep in the heat and keep out the cold, so that you
can cook easily by fireless and save much electricity.
The oven should be equipped with top and floor heating units. These
should be controlled by a three-heat switch and so geared and wired as
to be accessible. If one unit burns out the others will not.
In some stoves the heating unit in the top of the bake oven is
controlled by the same switch which operates the units in the oven
bottom and is of proper intensity to insure good results.
Often this same unit also serves the broiler. In other cases the broiler
is supplied by an “on and off” switch alone and it is only made in
conjunction with the broiler. In still other stoves the three-heat
broiler with separate switch is employed.
The broiler must be heavily tinned to prevent rust and corrosion and it
must have a removable drip pan. In one stove on the market, which has
the broiler to the left on the top, the drip pan is fastened to the
broiler so that when it is drawn out over the stove for any reason the
drippings are caught by the pan and not spattered on the stove top
beneath. This is a minor perfection but a very nice one.
Some range companies make a unit of a certain size, say “24” or “48,”
and if you want a larger size you can simply say “I want two units”--or
three, or what not. There are small stoves for yachts and kitchenettes;
in fact, the electric stove is as adaptable as a telescope, some have
ovens above, some have ovens below, some have broilers above, some
below. Some have everything above, some everything below. You can have
exactly what you want as to price and style. Some stoves are also
equipped with practical plate and food warmers.
One very pleasing stove is called a period stove because it has legs
that curve and cavort like a period bit of furniture--what period we
couldn’t say unless it be early Edison.
Then, too, there are combination coal and electric ranges, for there are
those persons who must have both--and as they are beautifully combined
they make a neat and effective unit in the kitchen.
There are portable stoves and stoves that are built-in; that is, the
stove that can be very simply moved from place to place if necessary,
and the one that is backed into the wall and would leave a scar if it
were moved. Of course the huge stoves are of the built-in type, but
they, too, come with legs and are better adapted to removal.
ELECTRIC MEASUREMENTS
For these electric stoves, special wiring must be effected. They cannot
be attached to the ordinary electric socket. It is necessary when
ordering a stove to give the voltage of your electric supply. The stoves
are usually prepared for 110 volts with two-wire service from street or
110-220 volts with three-wire service. In some stoves the cut-out box is
built on the range directly back of the switches. This, then, can be
easily opened if anything happens. In the stock stove an extra charge is
made for voltage exceeding 220 or less than 110, because alterations
have to be made.
The consumption of watts in the electric stove is a very vital question.
Watts are the unit of electric power, just as you speak of 50 cubic feet
of gas in measuring gas consumption. The unit of figuring the cost is
not on the watt--because a watt is too small a figure but of the unit
of one thousand watts, which is the kilowatt. So you call the unit of
fuel consumption the kilowatt hour and you say the average stove
consumes about one kilowatt hour per person per day. If a burner
consumes 800 watts it means you will be charged ⁸⁰⁰⁄₁₀₀₀ of a kilowatt
per hour.
According to the size of heating elements, the wattage of stoves runs
from 10,000 watts or 10 kilowatts (which is the same thing) to about
2500 watts, or 2¹⁄₂ kilowatts on a small three-heating-unit range. This
gives its total capacity if everything goes at once.
It is a little more intelligent for the housewife to read her meter than
not to. So here is how it is done: There are four little dials, which
you read from right to left, the opposite manner of reading this page.
The first dial measures the tens, the second the hundreds, the third the
thousands, the fourth the ten thousands. Therefore, the total is found
by adding all the figures at which the dials point and always reading
the lowest number which the dial approximates. But you must always
substract your last month’s record from this, of course, to get this
month’s average; and this amount multiplied by your electricity rate
would give you what your bill should be.
After all, the cost is the paramount thing in your purchasing and
calculations as to purchasing. The electric stove is, on the whole, more
expensive than the ordinary cook stove. The fuel cost varies, as has
been said before, with the locality in which you happen to live.
In many places the electric companies have made a cooking rate much
lower than the lighting rate. In such localities where the electricity
is but from 1¹⁄₂ to 2 cents, the electricity as fuel is almost equal in
cost to gas at one dollar. It has been generally admitted that, with
care as to fuel consumption, a kilowatt hour per day is consumed by
each individual in the house. If you have to pay three cents per
kilowatt hour and you have six persons in the house, your electricity
will cost you about eighteen cents per day. In the large, weighty and
“watty” stoves the consumption of electricity is about 2 kilowatt-hours
per day per person, but on the stock ranges not weighing over 300 pounds
with a comparative low wattage (compared with the 1200-pound
made-to-order range) the average is, as was said before, but one
kilowatt-hour per person per day. One firm, computing 4.2 persons to
average a family, states that in the use of 26,180 ranges the cost was
$4.06¹⁄₄ per month per family.
The value of electric cooking is not in the low cost of fuel but in the
saving of labor, food conservation, cleanliness, comfort and mental or
psychological delight in the shipshape and orderly method.
In cities where the cooking rate is the same as the lighting rate
(around seven cents) cooking by electricity is expensive for the average
folk who have to think a little about the cost of living.
It has been said that electric cooking is expensive because it takes
longer to cook by it than by gas. This is being overcome in three ways:
first, by the proper use of electricity and the turning it off and
cooking on retained heat; secondly, by the better made stove in use
to-day; thirdly, by the use of proper sized and shaped utensils which
are a very great factor in the rapidity of cooking and thence economy of
electricity as a fuel.
CONTROL AND TRIMMINGS
Most stoves are equipped with reliable thermometers and also many give
charts with the stove to show you exactly what temperatures on that
particular stove will accomplish the pop-over, the roast, or the
what-not. This eliminates any basis of error. Some, too, have glass
ovens which further add to the gaiety of rations.
In buying, buy of the best firms, get guarantees, see that your wiring
is adequate and that everything is well insulated with asbestos or
something of equal value.
See to it that your oven doors close without slamming; that when they
are open they won’t bend if a weight is put on them. We have seen one
stove stand the weight of a man jumping on the stove oven door when it
was lowered. Many a good cake has been ruined by banging oven doors.
The switches should be conveniently placed and not off in some corner.
The fuses should be back-side or back of range, as they are not
particularly beautiful to gaze upon and one is apt to take them for
switches when rushed. But few stoves now put the fuses in the front. The
fuses should be so connected that if one blows out all do not.
There is a stove on the market at present that has a fireless cooking
timing device, so that when you go to bed, you can have your breakfast
all cooked for you (if you have stocked the stove before retiring) at
any time in the morning at which you have set the clock. This you may
consider a trimming, but it is a nice bit of modern life’s embroidery.
In most of the stoves the fireless cooking saves time and saves your
food. Basting is unnecessary; you get what you pay for in weight of the
roast and lose less than by any other process of cookery. In some stoves
twelve or fifteen minutes of electricity are all that is needed; stored
heat then does the work.
DIMENSIONS AND CARE
The heights in stoves vary from a few inches (table ranges) to about 5′.
Height to cooking top varies, too; the nearest it comes to 38″ the more
comfortable, of course. The new stoves are being made with special
emphasis on the height of cooking surfaces.
The depth of stoves also varies, from the built-to-order stove which is
33″ to the stock stoves which run even as narrow as 16″, with but three
top cooking or heating units instead of the average four.
As with all new devices, you must practise with the electric stove to
get the best results. The first few weeks you may think you are using
too much current. You will be, too, but you will learn better if you
take the following into your mind:
1. Do not overheat your oven. Never let the temperature exceed the
thermometer’s tell-tale face.
2. Oil your oven occasionally as you would your typewriter or
sewing-machine, for some “non-rusting” ovens go back on you.
3. Not only engineers but cooks often sleep at the switch. But you
mustn’t. It would be wise to have a master switch in the kitchen
connecting the range to the electric supply. In this case you can turn
off the electricity and there will be no danger of leaving a burner
turned on when not needed. The heating plate may crack if the current
is turned on without anything cooking in a utensil on top of it.
4. Don’t remove burners unless repair is necessary. Boiling over of
foods won’t hurt the burners. Use nothing but a light non-metallic
brush to rid the burners of spillings. If you use old utensils that
have become rich in food deposits, thoroughly scour before using on
the electric stove. The electric stove makes no deposit on utensils.
5. Turn down the burner when water boils. You have three heats. Turn
from high to low at boil. Your bills will come down 75%. Use as little
water as possible and by keeping the lids on you will cook by steam.
Turn your switches to low at every chance you get. Ten or fifteen
minutes before the food is cooked you can turn off current; there will
be enough heat to cook with if your utensil is covered.
6. When cooking roasts, in about an hour, depending on the size of
your roast, you can turn off full current on the top burner and cook
on retained heat or on medium heat of bottom burner.
7. For safety in expense keep one burner on at Full. Start your
cookery of each thing on Full and then shift to medium burners. This
will save electric bills, as you won’t have all your burners going
full tilt at the same time.
8. Flat bottom utensils at least as large as the heating space are
necessary to the economical use of the electric stove. Use as little
water as possible, thereby cooking by steam and saving food. Shallow
vessels take less heat and therefore less electricity.
A VERY NEW DEPARTURE
On the market, as this goes to press has come the electric stove which,
instead of heating by radiant heat (red), cooks by conductivity or black
heat. That is, the unit becomes hot throughout and does not burn by
becoming red hot. It is claimed in this case that the unit wears longer
and that it takes less time to cook therefore less electricity. We have
not had time to test this stove so cannot vouch for it except that it
is made by very eminent manufacturers and invented by a very
distinguished expert.
It is so built that the cleaning of it and the replacing of its parts is
done with the minimum effort.
All switches and connections are at the back of the stove and can
therefore be kept inviolate.
The top burner elements are made of multiple low temperature units from
one ampere in a single unit to almost unlimited amperage of say 25
amperes, from 25 single units in parallel within a square or diameter of
8 or 9 inches. Think what flexibility of heat this means! It is just
what up to date the electric stove has lacked with its but one to three
“heats.” If one or more units burn out then there are others left!
The stove is so geared that a fluctuation of 25 volts will make no
trouble!
The oven arrangement and unit system are so arranged as to bake quicker
and adjustable to different size pans.
Ideal broiling is a thing quite boasted of in this stove.
All the units and parts are easily removable for cleaning so you will
get a prize if all the things they say of their stove are true and we
have little doubt that they are true.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Bramhall Deane Co._
HOOD AND STOVE HEATED BY GAS AND WOOD. NOTE THE MARBLE-TOPPED TABLES]