Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 241 



be in the way of each other, opened two to the right, 

 and two to the left. 



In a large kitchen, where a variety of different kinds 

 of food is baked at the same time or on the same day, 

 it is easy to perceive that a nest of small ovens must be 

 very useful, much more so than one large oven equal in 

 capacity to them all ; for, besides the inconvenience in 

 cooking a variety of different things in the same oven 

 that arises from the promiscuous mixture of various 

 exhalations and smells, the process going on in one dish 

 must often be disturbed by opening the oven to put in 

 or take out another, and the heat can never be so reg- 

 ulated as to suit them all; 



But the cook of the Military Academy at Munich 

 finds the nest of ovens useful not merely for baking : 

 he uses them also for stewing and for boiling, with great 

 success. A large quantity of cold liquid cannot, it is 

 true, be heated and made to boil in a very short time 

 in one of these ovens; but a saucepan or boiler, whose 

 contents are already boiling-hot, being placed in one of 

 them, a gentle boiling may be kept up for a great length 

 of time, with the consumption of an exceedingly small 

 quantity of fuel. 



With regard to the expense or cost of such a nest of 

 ovens, it could not, or at least ought not to, be consid- 

 erable. If they were each 12 inches wide, 12 inches 

 high, and 16 inches long, they would not weigh more 

 than 1 5 Ibs. each, their doors included ; and this would 

 make but 60 Ibs. for the weight of the whole nest, 

 supposing it to consist of four ovens. I do not know 

 what price might be demanded by the artificers in this 

 country, or by the trade, for work of this kind, but I 

 should think they might well afford to sell these ovens, 



VOL. III. l6 



