12 Foundling Hospital Kitchen

12 Foundling Hospital Kitchen

12 Extract from an account of the kitchen, fitted up at the Foundling, under the direction of Count Rumford. by the Matron of the Foundling. pp 089-097

In March 1796, Count Rumford made the offer of his assistance, in fitting up, on his principles, a kitchen at the Foundling. His proposal was immediately accepted with thanks; and the kitchen has now had a fair trial, having been in constant use for above a twelvemonth. The saving to the hospital in fuel is very considerable, being about 25 caldrons of coals a year. The quantity annually consumed was formerly 35, at present it is only 10 chaldrons. There were 2 cooks in the old kitchen and they had a severe and hot service; one cook in the present kitchen has a very easy one; the food, particularly the roast beef being better dressed than formerly. There are difficulties which attend the use of all new and valuable inventions at first. In this kitchen they were very few, and they were soon obviated; and the cook now manages her new kitchen, with much more ease and satisfaction to herself, than she did her old one. The kitchen (the size of the room being 17ft by 21ft) contains a large iron boiler divided into two parts, one being of 82 and the other of 41 gallons; at the further end of which and just above it is a steam-box; which, with the waste steam of the boiler, and without any addition of fuel, is capable of dressing 200 lbs of potatoes. This double boiler and box will dress a dinner for above 400 persons. They are both served by one small fire, which does not consume, for a day's dinner, more than a peck of coals and a peck of cinders, the price of the peck of coals, (reckoning them as dear as £2-12s-0d a chaldron) being fourpence, the cinders are saved from the consumption of the former day. On the other side of the room, there are two lesser boilers; one of them divided into parts, and in the centre of the wall, opposite the windows, is the roasting machine, which is five feet deep, two feet wide and fifteen inches high. In this the dinner, on the roast meat days, being 112 lbs of beef for the officers and children, is now dressed in four hours and a half, with a peck of coals and a peck of cinders. Sixteen months have passed since the roaster has been in constant use for dressing large dinners. I have just had the flue of the chimney cleaned; the dust which was taken out (and that not more than a peck) was a mixture of small ashes and soot; but more of the former than the latter. Indeed there did not appear to be any real soot among it. This can only be accounted for by the circumstance, of all the smoke being actually consumed and used in heating the roaster, instead of it being discharged, as is usual, out of the chimney, to assist in increasing and darkening the atmosphere of London. The dampers mentioned by Count Rumford, in page 153 of his sixth number, were put up before the kitchen was finished, and have been of great use. I think the new kitchen does not require so much repair as the old one. The iron bars at the bottom, are not burnt out near so soon as they used to be in the fire-place under the old boilers. They generally wanted repairing once in six weeks; there are 4 fire-places in the new kitchen, and in 16 months they have wanted nly six new bars.

Observations.
These boilers would be very useful in all parish workhouses. They would cause a very considerable saving of fuel, and almost as much of food; the waste by evaporation, being, in general, much more than can be supposed, without an actual experiment made. In the usual mode of boiling, the waste by steam is about one-fifth. That this vapour carries with it a considerable part of the food and nourishment, may be easily ascertained by any one who passes by any of the kitchens in London, where much soup is made; they will find the atmosphere around loaded with the waste of a great deal of valuable nourishment. There is another advantage belonging to these boilers, which is, that by means of the double rim, which is impervious to steam, they not only preclude waste in the food, but prevent its being contaminated by smoke; an inconvenience to which the kitchens and cookery of the poor are peculiarly subject.

The double rim is filled by water, into which the projection of the cover of the boiler descends, so as to absolutely preclude any communication with the outward air or smoke. - The benefit of this double rim may be obtained without an entire new boiler, by making the double rim of lead, soldered round the mouth of the old copper, and fitting the cover to it. The expence is about a guinea for a common sized copper. It answered, as I am informed, very well when tried in the poor-house at Auckland. The double rim would be very useful also in smaller boilers, especially intended for soup. Mr Hopkins of Greek Street has just made one of ten quarts for a village soup shop set up in Langley in Buckinghamshire.

Of the cautions, in the use of Count Rumford's kitchens, one of the most necessary, and the most difficult to procure attention to, relates to the quantity of coal to be used. If, instead of a peck of coal which is all that is necessary for one of these boilers, the cook follows her acquired instinct, and lays on twice the quantity or more, the operation instead of receiving benefit, is prejudiced, and the roaster very much injured by the waste of coals. Where coals are used without limitation, there is very little chance of these boilers or roasters answering.

Three roasters, after the model of that at the Foundling, have been lately put up at Christ's Hospital; and now when (instead of 9 bushels of coals formerly used on the roasting days) they are limited to something less than one bushel, being about a tithe of the former consumption; this quantity answers very well dressing 560 lbs weight, the allowance of their roast meat days.

In those cases where public bodies may be induced to adopt Count Rumford's kitchen, it is presumed that they may think proper to refer to the printed account, given away at the Foundling kitchen; where they will find some further directions on this subject, and also an account of the expence. The bricklayer's work in the kitchen, was done by Eves and Sutton of Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, and the ironmongery supplied by Mr Hopkins of Greek Street.

N.B. - Nearly all the common fire-places, at the Foundling, have been altered on Count Rumford's plan, and have answered very well; that at the porter's lodge always smoked before it was altered. If cottages in general were so altered, at least where fuel is dear, it would be a very great benefit to them.

The old grates (whether mere iron bars, Bath stoves, or the common standing grate) have been in general used again, without any alteration, except in some cases a diminution in size. The little basket stoves, commonly called the vase-stove, of the shape of a segment of a circle, do not (as far as I can learn) answer nearly as well as any of the above mentioned. They discharge dust into the room, and require an almost constant attention to the fire. The throat of the chimney, in the fire-places altered at the Foundling, has been made rather larger than is directed by Count Rumford; it being conceived that the smoke of the London coal fires requires a larger passage than that of the wood fires at Munich. Great care has been taken that the throat should be perpendicularly over the fire. The bevilled sides of the chimneys are occasionally whitened with pipe-clay or white-wash, which the persons, who make the fires, keep by them for that purpose. The bricklayer employed was Mallory of No 35 Henrietta Street, Manchester Square; the average expence of the alteration being about 15 shillings a chimney. The same caution is requisite in these chimnies as in the Count's kitchens, not to use, or rather waste, too much fuel.

Source:
The Reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor. Vol 1 1798 446 pp
Submitted by Alan Longbottom

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