66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



pounds of twenty to twenty-five pounds. The oven may be 

 worked night as well as day with safety with a lamp of less 

 power fitted with the Trench burner, the most scientific 

 burner in use, in bailing beans, Indian pudding and pan- 

 dowdy, and in the preparation of soup stocks. One oven is 

 going in my household practically all the time. 



The work done in the oven is baking, roasting, simmering, 

 stewing and sauteing. It is not w^orth while to use the oven 

 for boiling, because that work can be better done without 

 waste of the time of the oven, on a small metallic table out- 

 side over another lamp, and on that same table frying by 

 immersion may also be conducted. The true art of frying is 

 very different from that commonly practised in the American 

 frying pan, which is, I believe, the chief source of dyspepsia. 

 What is miscalled frying consists in putting food into a fry- 

 ing pan with a little film of fat which is sure to be raised to 

 an excessive heat, saturating the food with what the chemists 

 call " acroline," an indigestible and injurious product of 

 highly heated fat, while the essential properties of the fat and 

 food alike are dispersed through the house in the form of 

 bad smells. 



It is better for a person who can afford it to set up two 

 ovens, or one complete oven and one of these substitutes as 

 an auxiliary, although it is not necessary. One may be de- 

 voted exclusively to roasting and baking, the other to sim- 

 mering and stewing, the heat required varying. Meats, 

 especially tough meats, should be roasted a long time at a 

 moderate decree of heat, 200^ to 225° F. Tender meats 

 and poultry may be roasted more quickly, at a heat not 

 exceeding under any circumstances 320°, and if properly 

 basted may be put upon the table with a very aesthetic brown 

 upon the outside. Three hundred and twenty degrees F. is 

 substantially the point at which the cracking or distillation 

 of the fats begins, which is positively injurious. Simmering 

 must be done at less than the boiling point. Stewing for 

 the purpose of extracting all the juices of the meat without 

 regard to the condition of what is left may be conducted at 

 about the boiling point. 



Upon the matter of baking bread I have not yet deter- 

 mined the very best point. One may take a sponge properly 



