Uniformity of workhouse dietaries : report to Gathorne Hardy of Edward Smith / [Edward Smith].
- Edward Smith
- Date:
- 1867
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Uniformity of workhouse dietaries : report to Gathorne Hardy of Edward Smith / [Edward Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![1] In order to provide hot food, it is needful that it be prepared hot, that the distribution of food be rapidly effected, and that reasonable means be taken to prevent rapid cooling. The first may be and indeed usually is effected without difliculty. The second, or the rapid distribution of food, is attended with some difficulty, since the dining-room, and particularly the sick wards, are dis- tant fi-oni the kitchen, and the weighing of food for a large number of persons necessarily consumes mucli time. The kind of precaution to pre- vent the food from becoming cool is even yet more difficult. The food is usually cut up and weighed in a large and comparatively cold room; the dining-room is cold, and the doors are necessarily open, and a consider- able time must elapse between the first and last acts of distribution of the food. It is served on open plates which allow the action of the cold air on every side, or in tin pannikins, which rapidly radiate and lose heat. Moreover, the whole supply of food is placed upon the table before any of the inmates are admitted to tlie dining-room. The degree of difficulty in sup])lying hot food varies necessarily with the season of the year, the size of the workhouse, and the excellence of the arrangements ; but, upon the whole, further improvement is needed and may be readily effected. To this end it is necessary— 1. That the master and matron should l)e well impressed with the great importance of supplying hot food. 2. Sufficient help in the distribution should be obtained, and the carry- ing parties be well arranged. 3. A raj)id carver should be selected. In some workhouses the master is neither young nor active, and he might with advantage delegate a part of his duty to another, who shall perform it in his presence. 4. It is worthy of consideration whether fluid foods, as soup and tea, could not be carried into the dining-room in several large quan- tities and distributed upon the table. This is under consideration in several workhouses, and will, I trust, ultimately be found practicable. It would give the table a more homely character, and allow the food to be served when quite hot. o. Pottery should universally supplant tin plates and ])annikins. Wooden trenchers, which are still in use in many workhouses, are in this sense preferable to either, but they are objectionable in other ways and should now be disused. Pottery plates are commonly used, and in one or two workhouses pot-mugs have been substituted for tin pannikins, and the fears in reference to breakage have not been realized. The habit of eating food from tin pannikins in ordinary life has long passed away, and, in order to lessen that sense of degradation which it is not desirable that aged inmates sliould feel, as weU as to prevent the cooling of the food, it is to be hoped that pot-basins or mugs will ere long be in general use. , 6. The trays upon which the portions of food are carried to the dining- room and the sick wards should be covered. This would be most easily effected by having thin wooden covers to fit the tray, and cover the whole contents, and the additional weight would be small. 7. There is probably no sufficient reason why the inmates should not be assembled in their places before the food is placed upon the table, since the distribution of the food might be made without inconvenience or confusion. The extra diets (which arc only a very small minority) might be brought in separately. B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28053035_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
