44 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



moved to the country, the Borsodi kitchen showed an 

 exact reversal of the general trend. It was not only the 

 room in which we cooked or heated prepared foods 

 for the table it became the family cannery and 

 packing-house and creamery. And in such a kitchen, 

 we have found that the average woman could earn 

 much more than most of them were earning in the 

 factories, stores and offices for which so many millions 

 of women have abandoned home-making. 



One of our first extravagances when we began to 

 reequip and redesign our kitchen for production was 

 the purchase of a steam pressure cooker price in 

 1920 $25. We justified this seeming extravagance with 

 the hope that it could be made into a profitable in- 

 vestment. Today pressure cookers of the same size 

 with many improvements over the type we installed 

 can be purchased for $8.50. This piece of domestic 

 machinery enabled the family to cut the labor of can- 

 ning to from one-quarter to one-third of that neces- 

 sary with old-fashioned methods. Its sterilization 

 proved as reliable as any job of processing in the 

 largest canneries of the country. Without the pressure 

 cooker, canning a sufficient supply for winter would 

 have been as great a labor for us as trying to garden 

 with a spade and hoe. With the pressure cooker it be- 

 came quite practical to put up four-hundred quarts 

 of vegetables and fruits an ample supply for a fam- 

 ily of our size for the whole winter. In addition to the 

 staples usually canned, the pressure cooker enabled us 

 to can veal, chicken, mushrooms, and gelatine. 



