THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
IT is an acknowledged fact that the woman at the bead of every household is in effect the Chancellor of the Exchequer for that household. This being so, it is obvious what a tremendous weapon for good or evil is in the hands of the women of a nation when that nation goes to war. The old saying that " War is waged on the stomach of the soldier" did not go far enough. War is waged on the stomach of the whole people, and if by careful manage- ment the food supply of the country can be made to go twice as far as usual the nation concerned will have doubled its powers of resistance. In the present crisis the Government measures for ensuring the safety of ships bringing supplies will, it is hoped, result in averting panic prices; nevertheless, the women of England can greatly help the Government in their task. For instance, it is at any rate conceivable that there might be great delay in replenishing the stock of meat in the country. There is sufficient, say the experts, to last for two months at the present rate of consumption ; but if the women of the country resolve that the full value of every ounce of meat shall be extracted, and the consumption of meat halved, we should at once have at our disposal a four months' supply. It is, of course, important that the nation should be well fed, but it is not necessary to eat meat several times a day to attain this end. Food values must therefore be carefully studied, and the pulses and cereals must be made to give an adequate contribution to the nitrogenous food of each day. If, however, the nation is considered as one huge family, and the resources of the country are pooled, the housewife will at once be confronted by the fact that some one will have to eat the extravagant joints. The sheep who grows nothing but legs of mutton, and the ox who provides only rounds of beef, are a fond dream in the land of the unattainable. But as a matter of fact the extravagant joints are as a rule also the luxurious joints. The best end of the neck of mutton ; the saddle, with the Alderman's Walk lying hidden from sight and awaiting discovery by the truly greedy; the sirloin, with its large proportion of bone—all these are the best-known specimens of thoroughly extravagant joints. And their prices are correspondingly high. But there is a despised portion of the ox's anatomy called the aitch-bone—it too suffers from an excess of osseous tissue, and yet no one has ever suggested giving more than a few pence a pound for an aitch-bone, for, although it is a wasteful joint, it has no pretensions whatever to being a good joint. If there were as little demand for saddle of mutton as for aitch-bone, the price of this too highly favoured joint could not but fall to a natural level. But since a sirloin of beef is unfortunately unsurpassed in excellence, it is impossible to hope its price will ever fall, and the problem must therefore remain, Who is to eat it in time of war? The housewife can only resolve that, when it comes to her turn to buy it, no one in her household shall at any rate be allowed to taste the delights of having the fillet cooked as part of the main joint—a pleasant but wasteful proceeding.
A very powerful help to thrift—and it is by thrift that
• Schiemann
women will help their country at this moment—will be given by personal marketing : either by the head of the household herself, or, in the case of larger households, by her appointed agent the cook. And let no one think that the households of the rich in these times of stress will be behindhand in coming to the nation's assistance. Once the cook grasps the idea that what would ordinarily last the nation till September can with care be made to last till October, she will rise to the situation. There is no denying the fact that the power of saving food lies in the hands of the person who actually presides at the kitchen stove. Therefore, if there is a cook in the household at all, she will be able to do far more work for her country than her mistress. There exist, unfortunately, women who have in the past years of plenty laid up a Nemesis for themselves by allowing their cooks to indulge that natural extravagance which is characteristic of the British nation in every walk of life. It is, after all, always a sin to condone the waste of food, and the excuse for an extravagant cook of "My dear, her soups are so admirable!" or even " My dear, she is such a nice woman !" has been heard too often on the lips of mistresses. It is to be feared that women who have complacently kept extravagant cooks will be able to do very little now in the way of saving food, and this, in the days which are coming, will be sufficient punishment for any past sins. It remains only to hope that these particular cooks will be converted, for one thing is
certain—it is too late for them to be discharged. Rich
people who have engaged large households during the times of peace cannot with any decency hope to enjoy a vicarious patriotism by getting rid of those households now on the plea of cutting down their expenses.
The above reflections on the power of women in war have assumed that each household is an entity shut away in a water- tight compartment from every other household. These separate entities are, of course, one of the manifestations of the natural exclusiveness of the Briton. The small railway carriage is another, and they can be multiplied indefinitely. The present writer is fain to acknowledge that this isolation is a luxury which it is indeed hard to surrender. Bnt, although matters may not be carried to the extreme point, it is as well to prepare for emergencies, and is it not possible that even the isolation of the household may have to be temporarily given up? A. co-operative kitchen, odious in days of peace, may prove salvation itself in time of war. In the last resort the nation might avert starvation for some time by the establishment of Parish Food Committees, who, instead of issuing rations of uncooked food, would provide tickets for meals cooked in a co-operative kitchen. If run on economical lines like huge restaurants, the saving of the materials of food and fuel would be almost unbelievable. The time has, we hope, not yet come for such heroic methods, but should the considerations of strategy in the future prevent the arrival of food ships to our ports, and should the food supplies of the whole country have to be administered on the same lines as those of a besieged city, we commend the idea of the Parish Food Committee to existing local authorities such as Parish Councils. Let them find the most able administrators among them, whether men or women, and put them in charge. Then let these administrators so arrange the feeding of the nation that the raw materials may be cooked wholesale, not in minute, and consequently wasteful, portions.
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