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From his first job at Scientific American circa 1900 to his retirement in 1956 as science editor at the New York Times, Waldemar Kaempffert wrote widely about the sciences. As you might imagine from the man who penned yesterday's Popular Mechanics article, Kaempffert was a man with grand plans for a future world made better by science and industry. In 1918, he explained one of them, related to pneumatic tube meals, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.
Not until the trained engineer attacks the problem of housekeeping will these feminine ravings against servants and housekeeping difficulties be stilled . . . The kitchen engineer's first task will be the simplification of cooking . . . If letters are conveyed almost to your very door by the pneumatic tube, why should not the same means supply you with breakfast, lunch and dinner?Kaempffert suggested that a daily "Municipal Bill of Fare" published in the local papers. A city dweller would peruse the day's menu, then "ring up the central cooking station and say: 'This is kitchen number t-h-r-r-r-e-e-e one four five nine. Send me dinner No. 6 at half past 7.'"Imagine a kitchen of unprecedented immensity, a building comparable with a modern hotel in size, a place where an army of cooks is busily engaged in roasting meats, in preparing vegetables, in concocting entrancing sauces, in mixing salads, in stirring dreamy desserts. Imagine pneumatic tubes leading from the delivery floor of that mighty building to thousands of homes and apartments. Seven o'clock comes. Carriers three feet long, divided into compartments for soup, meat, sauces, vegetables and clean dishes, are slipped into the throats of myriad tubes. The covers are thrown down and with a swish the carriers are blown by compressed air to their destination. A few minutes later they are discharged into the kitchens of as many dwellings. The single maid of the household serves the dinner thus pneumatically received.
"Does this imply that the city will cook for the people?" he continued, "That is exactly what will happen. What is more, soup cooks, steak broilers, and coffee specialists will be elected very much as Aldermen will be elected"—political gridlock thus ensuring the starvation deaths of city dwellers everywhere, a cynical 21st-century type might add.
Kaempffert's letter to the editor was his second attempt at getting this plan off the ground; you can read his earlier article here.
Library of Congress image no. LC-USW3- 032351-E [P&P]
Comments
I'm not much for the political gridlock, but I definitely have "feminine ravings against household difficulties", so I say let's get this going.
That's awesome. I would definitely live in this city.
@braak: I do.
I check the "Municipal Bill of Fare" published on delivery.com or menupages.com or seamlessweb.com. I peruse the daily menu and select my choices directly from the menu and say this is Kitchen 432785F, send me dinner No. 6 at half past 8.
I don't even use cash. I have an account number that I automatically replenish from my desk every month.
The only thing missing is the pneumatic tubes. Although that is a big missing piece. In fact, I feel the only thing missing from most modern technology is the pneumatic tubes.
That's deranged - I love it!
Wasn't this sort of the plot of that Tick episode with the Boilermen?
-Kle.
@92BuickLeSabre: The pneumatic tubes are the best part! The pneumatic tubes are what makes it science!
just like being lassoed, everything tastes better when sent through pneumatic tubes.
I did my final college research paper on pneumatic tube technology. Tubes are still around, just in more discrete applications (secure money transfer between registers and counting rooms, moving medical samples between locations in medical facilities, secure document transfer).
Some are systems are pretty advanced, with "shipping" stations where the capsule can be digitally addressed w/ machine-readable codes on the front, and gates/switches in the tubes that read the destination of incoming tubes and route them accordingly.
Did you know that the first known mention of pneumatic tubes as a transportation/transmission medium was in the year 1667, in a paper delivered to the Royal Society in London by Denis Papin (1647-1712)?. He had been an assistant to Huygens in Paris, working on air pumps, and designed his own double-barrelled model. Now he is actually more famous for having designed and built the first primitive pressure cooker, in part to make cheaper jello. Seriously.
The first working tube system was built in 1853 to connect the main Electrical and International Telegraph Office in London to the branch office at the Stock exchange, 675 feet away.
Whoa, just got my nerd on there..sorry ;-)
@lillian27: Never apologize for getting your nerd on in here.
You'd think Sen. Ted Stevens would be all about this technology.
This reminds me of Maciej Ceglowski's painfully beautiful fake feature article, "The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel". It is a must-read: [www.idlewords.com]
"By the time they reach Cleveland the burritos are fully heated through and traveling uphill at about twice the speed of sound. A series of induction coils spaced through central Pennsylvania repeats the magnetic process in reverse, draining momentum from the burritos and turning it into electrical power."
I prefer my food delivered on a big truck where it's just dumped on
Tube food would give new life to the food fight arsenal.
I couldn't think of an easier way of poisoning an entire city easier....
that almost made sense. I'll try harder next time!
@toopersent: S'alright, I savvy what you're sayin'. I had the same thought - why should e-coli tainted meats incapacitate a few hundred, when it can take out a few hundred thousand?
This is why I don't trust futurists - their futures are boring. He had no idea there would be better uses for pneumatic tube systems in the future.
"This is consumer number Eiiiight five four two one - please send me Heroes season 1 on DVD and a bag of Malteasers immeadiately. Also, I would like a copy of Hustler at 10:30 and something by Tom Clancy at 11."
And let's not even start on the hamster races.
@RagingTowers: Ahem. "I see what you did there."
*cough* Blech. I didn't think it would taste so bad passing my metaphorical tongue. Ah well, It needed to be said.
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