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24
It may be said that work in underground bakehouses is carried on at night; it is
equally true that in many basement kitchens especially where evening meals are prepared,
such work is done with artificial light. In the day time often artificial light has
to be used and all the hygienic advantages of natural lighting are lost; also, unless care
is taken to provide adequate lighting of all parts of the room, the corners and recesses
will be poorly illuminated and in consequence poorly cleansed.
Ventilation is at the street level and, unless cleared away regularly, dust is apt to
accumulate at the necessary openings.
This is not to say that the use of basement kitchens should be entirely condemned,
but their use calls for certain precautions, and from the hygienic point of view in new
establishments if practicable (but often it is not), the kitchen should be elsewhere.
For the purpose of convenience we are told that the kitchen should either be on
the same floor as the dining-room and in immediate proximity to it or on the floor
immediately underneath. Objection has been raised to the use of the top floor for this
purpose because it is too far from the dining-room. From the point of view of hygiene
the placing of the kitchen on the top floor has much to recommend it, chiefly on the
grounds of ease of obtaining natural lighting and adequate ventilation. Nothing is more
unpleasant than the smell of cooking which sometimes penetrates the whole of the
rooms above the kitchen. Every kitchen should be properly ventilated to get rid of
smells and heat, but not to such an extent as to check the draught of ranges.
In 13 instances the kitchens fortunately were on the top floor. The cleanly
conduct of the business must be prejudiced if the space provided is inadequate. In 10
cases the kitchens were too small for efficiency; in 26 cases the limited cooking
required was carried on in the shop used also as the dining room.
Vermin.—Comparatively few restaurant-kitchens were found to be vermin
infested. In 7 there was evidence of the presence of rats, and in 9 of cockroaches, and
in 1 there was evidence of both rats and cockroaches.