[Sca-cooks] Kitchen wear, was Very carefully not panicking...

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 11:33 AM 9/23/02 -0400, you wrote:
>
>    Frankly almost all of my historic cooking has been done in period
dress, often with down hearth methods (hot coals and fire).  I do not feel
that my hiostoric clothing is any less safe than modern ones, and often it
is safer (fire hazard issues).
>
>Ranald de Balinhard,

Yup. One note here- 'Period Dress' in this case needs to be _period_, not
your ratty t-tunic from your first year. It may wash easily, but polyester
and fire do very bad things together. If you are working near flame, wool
is safest (after asbestos, of course ;-) even if it is hot.

Interesting note along the same lines- I was working in the cottons dept
the other day, and the dept manager was walking us through, and she
explained to us (when one of the other trainees asked about fire-retardant)
that they do not recommend the fire-retardant flannels for kids jammies
anymore. Becasue the retardant tends to wash off, and the poly/nylon etc
that they are made from _melts_ rather than burning, resulting in much
greater danger of serious injury in a fire. They recommend teh 100% cotton
flannel and a fresh smoke detector battery.

Of course I know y'all know this sort of thing, but it is nice to have a
refresher...

'Lainie
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...