A cookery lesson in the Temperance Hall, by A Correspondent

An original newspaper report written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

This newspaper report, published in 1879, describes a free public lesson in cookery given to the wives of working men.

On Tuesday evening the Temperance Hall in Cable Street was filled to the doors for the first of a series of free lessons in cookery, arranged by the ladies of the Sanitary Association for the wives of working men. Upon the platform stood a small iron range, a deal table and a row of saucepans, and behind them Mrs Garland, of the National Training School, who cooked before the audience a dinner for six persons at a cost of elevenpence.

The dinner consisted of a pea soup, a stew of neck of mutton with onions and carrots, and a baked rice pudding. Mrs Garland observed that a great deal of the money of the poor is wasted not through idleness but for want of knowledge. Too many housewives, she said, boil meat at a gallop until it is as hard as leather, and then throw away the water and the bones, which would have made a nourishing soup for the following day.

At the close of the lesson the dishes were handed round the hall, and the plates were emptied in a very few minutes. A great many women stayed behind to copy the receipts, and one was heard to declare that she would try the stew on her husband that very week. The next lesson, upon bread, will be given on Tuesday.

(a) How much did the dinner for six persons cost? (b) According to Mrs Garland, what mistake do many housewives make when cooking meat? (c) What does the women’s behaviour at the end of the lesson suggest about their reaction to it?