Home › On Housekeeping › On Housekeeping
On Housekeeping
1255. The manager has here a much more difficult task to perform, as she has to support the same family upon a smaller allowance of the most expensive articles, and cannot, therefore, afford butcher's meat every day. She will have the following materials to go to work upon -viz., about 11lb. of meat or bacon, 20lb. of bread, and 3lb. of flour; 3s. worth of milk, butter, and cheese; 3s. worth of grocery; 2s. worth of green-grocery; 1s. 10d. for beer; and 9d. a week for washing materials, the labour for which she must find herself. All these contracted items will, therefore, demand great care, as the quantities furnished are scarcely sufficient for the wants of nature. Unless, by good fortune, there is a garden to supply potatoes, or they can be purchased at a low rate, it is impossible to effect a full diet on this scale, as three pecks of potatoes per week are the utmost which can be obtained for the money, on the average, throughout England. This will allow nearly half a peck a day, or say 6lb., which gives one pound of potatoes per head for dinner, with nearly half a pound of bread each per day for breakfast and tea, to be eaten with one quarter of a pound of salt butter among the family, divided between the morning and evening meal. One quart of milk will also be allowed, but no cheese, as I believe it to be an extravagant article of food. The next thing, therefore, to consider, is as to the dinners, which may be as follows :- Sunday. Sheep's head roasted with chopped | Wednesday.-Bouilli (page 81); cabbage liver, and roast potatoes.
Monday. Remainder of sheep's pluck fried, with dish of fried potatoes.
Tuesday. Half a pound of bacon fried with cabbage, and eaten with boiled potatoes; suet pudding. and potatoes.
Thursday.-Pot-au-feu (page 81); potatoes and yeast dumplings.
Friday. Two pounds of beef stewed with Saturday. Pea-soup made without meat, carrots or potatoes, as Irish Stew. or from part of pot-au-fen: fried potatoes and suet pudding.
These remarks might be indefinitely extended; but the natural intelligence of every individual must be exercised in arranging different kinds of cheap food, so as to suit the ever-varying circumstances connected with the locality. Much that would be useful to the man with only £65 a year to spend in this way, may be found under Cookery for the Poor (page 304), if he is not too proud to make use of it; but the prevailing error in this country is, that the man who is cramped in his means will not make up his mind to bend his diet low enough in materials to suit his purse. We are all too apt to try and imitate the manners of our superiors just above us; and in this way much misery and inconvenience is occasioned, which might be avoided by a timely submission to our lot.