|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The 'electric breakfast' was an idea promoted by the EDA (Electrical Development Association) from around 1914, a time when breakfast was still a substantial cooked meal. Demand on the fledgling domestic supply system fluctuated greatly with the highest loads in the evening from heating, lighting and cooking. This caused enormous problems for the supply engineers because it was only practical to generate electricity evenly. Daytime use of electricity was therefore promoted, especially early in the morning, before the hours when industrial consumption would compensate.
As a result, small electrical cooking appliances were widely publicised and became much more popular than electric cookers, despite their often poor design and inadequate safety considerations. Until the 1950s, the electric cooker was greatly inferior to gas in terms of high running costs and lack of controllability, even after the invention of thermostat oven control by Creda in 1933. Smaller appliances flourished, however, and offered benefits, such as portability and cleanliness, that simply were not attainable with gas. These were, by nature, cheaper and more widely available than full-size cookers and many could be run from an ordinary light-bulb socket. A sumptuous breakfast, as illustrated in many household and cookery manuals, could be prepared perfectly adequately on a range of smaller appliances, positioned for the greatest convenience and flexibility. Metaphorically, the traditional cooker had been disassembled and reassembled outside the kitchen, its functions being performed by a number of smaller appliances. By the mid-1930s, the home owner had a very wide range to choose from: electric kettles, toasters, coffee percolators, waffle irons, egg poachers, automatic tea makers, table-top single hot plates, single-cup immersion heaters, milk warmers, sterilisers, vacuum coffee machines, warming plates, sandwich toasters and small table-top cookers.
As well as allowing the owner proudly to show off the 'wonder of electricity' on the breakfast table, the traditional kitchen or scullery was now no longer the sole domain for the preparation of food. In persuasive advertising by the EDA and appliance manufacturers, emphasis was placed on the speed, cleanliness and modernity by which the food was produced, the freshness of its preparation (another health consideration), and the overall convenience of having cooked food as and when required. Above all, the electric breakfast was the one meal where all the cooking could be controlled on the table (or within arm's reach), by those eating, without having to rely on servants or frequent dashes to the kitchen to check on proceedings.
Click on an appliance on the table to find out more about it...
