KEEPING IT COOL
She rang for the butler:
“Wilson, please ask the chef what kind of a refrigerator the architect
put in for us.”
“Very well, madam,” and he departed to the kitchen.
This same chatelaine did not send for the butler to inquire what kind of
an automobile her garage held. Not for a moment! She knew, too, the
difference between the Rolls-Royce, her car, and the Ford, or any other
car! Yet, she didn’t know her refrigerator! And to-day, although all the
world’s a-wheel, the very crux of the situation is the refrigerator!
Peace--war--the economic structure of nations hinges on the preservation
of food, not only in refrigerating cars, but in our kitchens; for, as
our kitchens save food, just so much more easily will the world be fed
and unrest cease.
Beyond much doubt the chic porcelain-lined refrigerator of to-day is the
corner-stone of the halls of domesticity; for what in the unconscious
song of every husband is a wife without well-kept food! And is there any
romance that will survive flabby lettuce and pulpy celery?
HOW IT IS MADE
The booklets about the refrigerator are entrancing! The pictures bring
to mind marble halls, à la Alma Tadema, and you might wonder why he
never used a modern refrigerator in one of his Roman paintings!
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of the Kelvinator Co._
WHEN THERE IS A CELLAR USED FOR THE LAUNDRY, THE ICE-MAKER COILS CAN BE
SET DOWN THERE WITH EASE AND SIMPLICITY. HERE TOO IS AN ELECTRIC IRONER
AND WASHER INSTALLED, WITH A VERY NEAT TOOL RACK!]
But you will remember that the linings of the refrigerator are not of
marble no matter how much they resemble it, but instead must be made in
one piece of smooth, hard, non-porous, non-warpable, non rustable
material, the best type of which is the burnt-in vitreous porcelain in
several layers on a metal backing. These linings must be made in one
piece with no seams. No seams and seamless are quite different in their
implication. “No seams” is what it seems to indicate, but seamless means
a camouflage of joints. Joints and seams are food and odor entrappers
and presage disease and death. Many of the advertised enameled interiors
are made of nothing but paint heated, not burnt-in, which therefore
flakes off or crazes (cracks form) and falls into the food, which of
course is not a particularly epicurean sort of truffle!
The doors, too, must be seamless, jointless, screwless and smooth.
The shelves and other partitions must be of smooth, heavily tinned wire
mesh. Smooth to prevent accumulation of food; and the wire mesh to
insure rapid and unimpeded circulation of air.
THE NINE POINTS
Whereas some refrigerator owners may keep butlers, the following points
are more essential to the maidless home, because effort and energy and
strength are saved to say naught of money and ice if conditions are such
that the ice will not fade away rapidly and cleaning have to be done
under difficulties of construction.
Therefore, to preserve the sanitation of the home and the consequent
sanity of the world before buying a refrigerator the following Nine
Points should be laid before the Kitchen Diplomatic Table:
1. Does it: Maintain a low and uniform temperature?
2. Maintain a pure atmosphere?
3. Appear to keep absolutely sanitary?
4. Seem to be built to keep perfect circulation and an absence from
odors?
5. Keep free from moisture?
6. Seem built to be economical in ice consumption?
7. Have a system to insure perfect drainage?
8. Contain a porcelain lining in provision chamber?
9. And does it seem to be built for durability as well as for beauty?
And now about enforcing the Nine Points.
THE INSULATION
How for instance is a minimum temperature to be kept? Chiefly, by
insulation--this is a strictly mechanical term understood by motorists
and engineers and must be understood by the housewife, who is a domestic
or kitchen engineer if she is anything. The low temperature is kept by
keeping out the outside heat and keeping in the inside cold! After much
experiment, it has been found that the walls, floors and doors of every
refrigerator must have at least one air space, from six to nine layers
of insulating material consisting of pebbled cork, or certain patented
materials, mineral wool, asbestos and various layers of porous
substances which keep out the outer warm air and prevent the cold air
from escaping. (See illustration.) Well insulated refrigerators backed
up against boilers, stoves or vats maintain a temperature far below 58
or 60 degrees; some, the best, maintaining 50 degrees.
AS TO ICE CHAMBERS
The ice compartment should be above, and to one side, so that the cold
air from the melting ice can descend, as is the custom of cold air, and
can rise again as it gets heated in its contact with the provisions and
pass up over the ice, be cooled and pass down again with its collected
odors through the drain. This is what is called air circulation, and
when the ice box is properly constructed, and when the ice compartment
is kept full, the air is in constant motion, traveling over and over
again up and down and around the food and ice. This constant activity of
the air is what insures an odorless condition, unmouldy and cold food.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Bohm Syphon Co._
NOR COLD NOR HEAT CAN GET BEYOND THESE FORTIFICATIONS
PORCELAIN ENAMEL
LINING ONE PIECE
DEAD AIR SPACE
INSIDE WOOD LINING
BLACK WATERPROOF PAPER
WOOL FELT PAPER
FLAXLINUM INSULATION
OUTSIDE WOOD CASE]
In the best refrigerators the ice chamber extends a few inches below the
door and is lined with the highest grade of smooth galvanized metal,
lock jointed, and is without seams and sharp edges.
In some refrigerators the wall between the ice compartment and the
provision chamber is slatted, in some there is a space at the top, in
others, holes are bored, top and bottom, to permit the free egress of
the circulating air. These methods are good in varying degrees. The main
things to be kept in mind are:
1. Does the air circulate enough to prevent any moisture accumulating
in the refrigerator? Can salt be kept dry and granular in it for one
hundred hours?
2. Does the refrigerator keep below 60 degrees, or better between 45
and 50 degrees? Will a damp cloth dry quicker inside than outside of
it, because of the rapid circulation and dryness of the air?
3. Do matches keep dry and can they be lighted by being struck on its
walls? (This shows whether the ice box is dry!)
4. Does the milk taste of cheese or the butter of the soup?
If they have any “acquired traits,” you may be sure the circulation of
air in your refrigerator is bad or else there are seams or crazes in the
tile, holding odors in their grip. Tiles and other beautiful interiors
have in many instances been discarded by many makers because of their
brittleness or pertinacious grip on odors--which, in the form of gases,
poison foods and hence the family! Opal glass has been dropped because
of its fragility in lighter weights. There are, however, some
manufacturers who use tile with excellent result.
Another important feature is the drain pipe, more important almost than
the exhaust on the motor. If this pipe is not constructed solely to
carry off odors and waste materials from the cleanest ice and not to
import insects, gases and warm air from the sewage of the town, it will
collect a very tidy packet of typhoid, diphtheria or any home-seeking
germs. This drain ought therefore to have a water-sealed trap in it, it
should be smooth, of hard, well-finished metal and be so simply cleaned
that the kitchen maid, or whoever is delegated to perform the laving of
this important part of the household, should not look forward to the
performance with horror, but with a sense of ease.
There isn’t a doubt that a faulty drain in the refrigerator has caused
more typhoid than anything else.
Think what it means then to be a good kitchen engineer--what service you
can render your family! Few home-keepers realize the necessity of
understanding the underlying principles of air circulation, sanitation
and germination but what a lot of misery could be avoided if the
chatelaine or even the wife-cook had a little technical knowledge. How
this would dignify the science of the home. And yet how lightly is the
function of home-keeper assumed and how many brainy women look down upon
it!
HOW TO USE A REFRIGERATOR
But if you have everything to assure perfection in refrigeration and
know not how to use it, it is as if you had none at all.
Note this amendment to the nine points:
1. Keep your ice chamber _full_, even after Dry Laws. It saves ice and
preserves your food. The circulating air will only go “over the top”
as far as the bulk of ice drives it.
2. _Never put any food in the ice compartment._ It must play an
infinite solitaire.
3. Keep the doors shut, and open them as little as possible.
4. If the ice gives out, take out all the material and rinse out the
refrigerator. Refill it with ice and keep the door shut at least six
hours. And remember sufficiency of ice insures efficiency of
refrigeration and efficiency of refrigeration means a sufficiency in
expenditure--for a refrigerator.
Water coils can be put in some ice chambers which connect directly with
the water supply. In this way the water can be kept continuously cool
for drinking under all conditions of outside temperature.
The outside of the ice box should be of hard wood or porcelain, the
hardware of the best, including lever door handles.
Back doors for filling the ice box can be set so that the ice can be put
in from the outside of the ice house, room, pantry or kitchen. This
avoids useless handling and melting of the ice and obviates the iceman’s
journey through the house.
And, above all, choose a refrigerator that has no unnecessary
“improvements” in the ice chamber which have to be taken out and
scalded. The easier it can be rinsed from within the more often the
attendants will clean it!
And remember this, too, that an ice box is a cooler where the ice and
provisions go in the same chamber, while the _refrigerator_--well, you
know it all now.
And, by the way, if you want a useful little device to keep your grape
juice or yourself--cool--while motoring this summer, look up a little
basket refrigerator which comes in many sizes and many prices.