422 Of Food. 



diminished, and it was at length entirely omitted. I 

 never heard that the poor complained of the want of 

 it, and much doubt whether they took notice of it. 



The management of the fire in cooking is, in all 

 cases, a matter of great importance ; but in no case 

 is it so necessary to be attended to as in preparing 

 the cheap and nutritive soups here recommended. Not 

 only the palatableness, but even the strength or rich- 

 ness of the soup, seems to depend very much upon 

 the management of the heat employed in cooking it. 



From the beginning of the process to the end of it, 

 the boiling should be as gentle as possible ; and if it 

 were possible to keep the soup always just boiling hot, 

 without actually boiling, it would be so much the 

 better. 



Causing any thing to boil violently in any culinary 

 process is very ill-judged ; for it not only does not 

 expedite, even in the smallest degree, the process of 

 cooking, but it occasions a most enormous waste of 

 fuel, and by driving away with the steam many of the 

 more volatile and more savoury particles of the ingre- 

 dients renders the victuals less good and less palatable. 

 To those who are acquainted with the experimental 

 philosophy of heat, and who know that water once 

 brought to be boiling hot, however gently it may boil 

 in fact, cannot be made any hotter, however large and 

 intense the fire under it may be made ; and who know 

 that it is by the heat that is to say, the degree or 

 intensity of it, and the time of its being continued, and 

 not by the bubbling up or boiling (as it is called) of the 

 water that culinary operations are performed, this 

 will be evident ; and those who know that more than 

 fiv e times as much heat is required to send off in steam 



