8 z6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



idea that the metal plate forming the bottom of the frying-pan should 

 directly convey the heat of the fire to the fried substance, and that the 

 bit of butter or lard or dripping put into the pan is used to prevent 

 the fish from sticking to it, or to add to the richness of the fish by 

 smearing its surface. 



The theory which I have suggested (see No. XIII, page 818) is that 

 the melted fat cooks by convection of heat, just as water does in the- 

 so-called boiling of meat. If that is correct, it is evident that the fish, 

 etc., should be completely immersed in a bath of melted fat or oil, and 

 that the turning over demanded by the greased-plate theory is un- 

 necessary. Well-educated cooks understand this distinctly, and use a 

 deeper vessel than our common frying-pan, charge this with a quantity 

 of fat sufficient to cover the fish, which is simply laid upon a wire 

 support, or frying-basket, and left in the hot fat until the browning of 

 its surface, or of the flour or bread-crumbs with which it is coated, 

 indicates the sufficiency of the cookery. 



At first sight this appears extravagant, as compared with the prac- 

 tice of greasing the bottom of the pan with a little dab of fat ; but any 

 housewife who will apply to the frying of sprats, herrings, etc., the 

 method of quantitative inductive research, described and advocated 

 by Lord Bacon in his " Novum Organum Scientarum," may prove the 

 contrary. 



" Must I read the ' Novum Organum,' and buy another dictionary, 

 in order to translate all this ? " she may exclaim in despair. " No ! " 

 is my reply. This Baconian inductive method, to which we are in- 

 debted for all the triumphs of modern science, is nothing more nor 

 less than the systematic and orderly application of common sense and 

 definite measurement to practical questions. In this case it may be 

 applied simply by frying a weighed quantity of any pai'ticular kind of 

 fish say sprats in a weighed quantity of fat used as a bath ; then 

 weighing the fat that remains and subtracting the latter weight from 

 the first, to determine the quantity consumed. If the frying be prop- 

 erly performed, and this quantity compared with that which is con- 

 sumed by the method of merely greasing the pan -bottom, the bath- 

 frying will be proved to be the more economical as well as the more 

 efficient method. 



The reason of this is simply that much or all of the fat is burned 

 and wasted when only a thin film is spread on the bottom of the pan, 

 while no such waste occurs when the bath of fat is properly used. 

 The temperature at which the dissociation of fat commences is below 

 that required for delicately browning the surface of the fish itself, or 

 of the flour or bread-crumbs, and therefore no fat is burned away 

 from the bath, as it is by the overheated portions of a merely greased 

 frying-pan ; and, as regards the quantity adhering to the fish itself, 

 this may be reduced to a minimum by withdrawing it from the bath 

 when thetchole is uniformly at the maximum cooking temperature, and 



