Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 1 79 



like a camp-kitchen), no arrangement for cooking could 

 well be imagined more economical or more convenient 



Soups prepared in this way are uncommonly savoury; 

 and I am convinced that the true reason why nourishing 

 soups and broths are not more in use among the common 

 people in Great Britain and Ireland is because they do not 

 know how good they really are, nor how to prepare them ; 

 in short, because they are not acquainted with them. 



But to return from this digression. It is most certain 

 not only that meat and vegetables of all kinds may be 

 cooked in water which is kept boiling-hot without actu- 

 ally boiling, but also that they may even be cooked with 

 a degree of heat below the boiling point. 



It is well known that the heat of boiling water is not 

 the same in all situations, that it depends on the press- 

 ure of the atmosphere, and consequently is considera- 

 bly greater at the level of the surface of the sea than 

 inland countries, and on the tops of high mountains ; 

 but I never heard that any difficulty was found to attend 

 the process of dressing food by boiling, even in the 

 highest situations. Water boils at London (and at all 

 other places on the same level) at the temperature of 

 2 1 2 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer ; but it would 

 be absolutely impossible to communicate that degree 

 of heat to water in an open boiler in Bavaria. The 

 boiling-point at Munich, under the mean pressure of 

 the atmosphere at that place, is about 2093 degrees of 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer ; yet nobody, I believe, ever 

 perceived that boiled meat was less thoroughly done at 

 Munich than at London. But if meat may, without the 

 least difficulty, be cooked with the heat of 209! degrees 

 of Fahrenheit at Munich, why should it not be possible 

 to cook it with the same degree of heat in London ? If 



