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Kitchens should be too small for
setting a table, and if there is any probability of undertaking
such a thing, they should be still smaller. If there is any one
thing better calculated than another to weaken digestion, mar
the pleasure of eating, grate upon delicate nerves, and harrow
up the feelings generally of persons of some degree of culture
and refinement, it is to sit down to meals in a room impregnated
with the odors of cooking, with stove close at hand containing
steaming pots and boilers of turnip, cabbage or potato water,
and the greasy liquid in which meat or fish was cooked; on the
other side perhaps a shelf or sink, containing the endless list
that will accumulate in cooking, of dirty dishes, pans, spiders,
skillets, griddle greasers, and what not, that in the hurry to
have the meal at the exact minute, must be tossed into the
nearest catch-all. Oh, what a place for that social and
intellectual feast - that warm commingling of the feelings and
affections which in some families can occur only at meal time,
as then only will all the members be together - even family
worship will probably be conducted here! Is this picture too
strong? ‘You don’t have things so.’ Perhaps not. But
others must admit, at least to themselves, that it may be even
worse.
From The Register of Rural
Affairs, 1873
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