Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 333 



been remarkable for their fondness for soups, and for 

 their skill in preparing them. Now as national habits 

 of this kind must necessarily originate at a very early 

 period of society, and must depend on peculiar local 

 circumstances, may not the prevalence of the custom of 

 eating soup in France be ascribed to the open chimney 

 fire-places and wood fires which have ever been common 

 in that country ? 



It is certain that in the infancy of society, before 

 the arts had made any considerable progress, families 

 cooked their victuals by the same fire which warmed 

 them. Kitchens then were not known ; and the utensils 

 used in cooking were extremely simple, an earthen pot 

 perhaps set down before the fire. We have just seen 

 that, with such an apparatus, soups of the very best 

 qualities would naturally be produced ; and it is not 

 surprising that a whole nation should acquire a fondness 

 for a species of food not only excellent in its kind, but 

 cheap, nutritious, and wholesome, and easily pre- 

 pared. 



Had coals been the fuel used in France, it is not 

 likely that soups would have been so generally adopted 

 in that country ; for a common coal fire is not favour- 

 able for making good soups, although with a little 

 management the very best soups may be made, and 

 every other process of cooking be performed, in the 

 highest perfection with any kind of fuel. 



When the science of cookery is once well understood, 

 or an intimate knowledge is acquired of the precise nat- 

 ure of those chemical and mechanical changes which 

 are produced in the various culinary processes, we may 

 then, and not till then, take measures with certainty 

 for improving the art of preparing food. Experience, 



