THE ART OF COOKING. 7 



stove in summer nor of the range in winter are now used for 

 cooking ; therefore, the kitchen is never overheated and the food 

 is never spoiled. We have occasionally failed to cook a large 

 joint of meat for a sufficient time, but we have never spoiled a 

 dish in the process of cooking since the pulp or jacketed oven 

 was adopted. 



What, then, are the simple principles of the science of cook- 

 ing ? I think they may be stated in a few very plain terms : 



1. The heat should be derived from fuel which can be wholly 

 consumed or wholly converted into the products of complete com- 

 bustion without any chimney except that of the lamp or burner. 

 The fault with coal, especially anthracite, is, that it is not evenly 

 or fully consumed ; hence the need of a chimney to take away the 

 gases developed and not wholly consumed ; but the chimney also 

 carries off the greater part of the heat. It is very evident that the 

 crude combustion of coal and the direct application of the heat 

 generated will ere long give way to more scientific methods of 

 consuming the gaseous products and of deriving the heat from 

 the final combustion of the gaseous products in all arts. In the 

 matter of cooking, kerosene-oil burned in any one of the types of 

 lamp which have a central duct to convey oxygen from below to 

 the inner side of a circular wick, when properly trimmed and 

 served with well - distilled oil, gives substantially perfect com- 

 bustion. 



The same may be said of illuminating gas when used in one of 

 the burners of the Bunsen type which supply an excess of oxygen 

 and yield the blue flame. 



The combustion of oil and of gas can be brought under abso 

 lute control by gauging the size of wick or burner to the work to 

 be done. 



2. The oven in which the food is to be subjected to this meas- 

 urable and controllable source of heat must be so constructed that 

 the heat imparted to it may be entrapped and accumulated up to 

 a certain measure or degree and then maintained at that tempera- 

 ture without substantial variation until the work is done. This 

 can be done by jacketing the oven in a suitable way with mate- 

 rial which is incombustible and also a non-conductor of heat. 



3. There should be no direct communication between the true 

 oven or receptacle in which the food is placed and the source of 

 heat, lest the products of incomplete combustion should some- 

 times taint the food, and lest the food should be exposed to being 

 in places burned or scorched. 



These three conditions are all accomplished in the two some- 

 what crude and probably incomplete inventions which I have 

 named the " Aladdin Cooker " and the " Aladdin Oven," in both of 

 which the heat derived from common lamps, such as are used for 



