8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lighting, may be stored or accumulated so as to do the work of 

 cooking in a very perfect manner. In the cooker the heat is im- 

 parted to water in an attachment to a metal-lined wooden box 

 corresponding to the water-back of the common range or stove, 

 and the work is done by the contact of the hot water with the 

 outside of the porcelain vessels in which the food is placed, or by 

 the steam generated when the water is heated to the boiling-point. 



In the oven a column of heated air is carried from the chim- 

 ney of the lamp to the inside of an outer oven made chiefly of 

 prepared wood-pulp, but outside of the inner sheet-iron or metallic 

 oven in which the food is placed, which inner oven is separately 

 ventilated. 



I do not claim any originality in these simple principles or in 

 the idea of jacketing an oven with non-conductors of heat. All 

 these matters are well understood by every intelligent stove- 

 manufacturer, but it is practically impossible for any one to apply 

 them in making stoves such as will meet the demand of the mar- 

 ket, for two reasons : 



1. The greatest demand for stoves is that of people of very 

 moderate means, who are too much controlled by the price in mak- 

 ing a choice, making the common error in confounding cheapness 

 with low price, an error which leads to great waste not only in 

 the matter of stoves but in many other ways. 



2. The absolute and imperative preference of the public for a 

 stove in or upon which the work can be done very quickly. 



The custom of cooking quickly is in part a matter of choice, 

 and in part due to the necessity to which a great many working 

 people are subject to cook their meals quickly or else to go with- 

 out hot breakfasts and dinners. 



Another great obstruction to improvement in the art of cook- 

 ing is the almost universal misconception that the finer cuts of 

 meat are more nutritious than the coarser portions, coupled with 

 an almost universal prejudice among working people against 

 stewed food. This prejudice is doubtless due to the tasteless 

 quality of boiled meat ; boiling toughens each of the fine fibers, 

 and deprives the meat almost wholly of its distinctive flavor. 



All these blunders and misconceptions must evidently be 

 removed before any true art of cooking can become common 

 practice. 



The more necessary, however, does it become to invent appa- 

 ratus in which meat can only be simmered and can not boil, as in 

 the Aladdin cooker, and also to invent a stove or oven in which 

 neither meat nor bread can be overcooked, dried up, or rendered 

 indigestible by too much heat, as in the Aladdin oven. 



Next, people must be persuaded that a better and more nutri- 

 tious breakfast can be made ready to eat, as soon as the family 



