Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

to my departure from that place, in order to take the management of two new hospitals, under the superintendence of Dr. Taylor, my Scutari culinary friend. He told me that, to his sorrow, he had completely failed in the construction of the kitchen in those Crimean hospitals, on account of not being able to obtain the necessary utensils, &c. I immediately proposed to set this to rights for him, as I had to build two new extra-diet kitchens at Miss Nightingale’s request. Dr. Taylor accepted my offer, and in less than a week both kitchens were satisfactorily completed, and they were also in full activity. In the extra-diet kitchens Miss Nightingale’s new stoves were adopted. The establishment called the Left Wing Hospital was in charge of the Sisters of Charity; the other, called the Right Wing, in that of Miss Stuart, a most excellent lady, and although of high family, subordinate to Miss Nightingale. During a period of six months, she rendered the greatest service, by ably assisting that lady in her exertions. I substituted my caldrons for the old ones in the large hospital kitchens. Slight wooden sheds were built to shelter them; and the establishments, at last complete, formed two of the most elegant, cleanly, and useful hospital kitchens in the camp--burning but little wood, instead of always running short, as was the case when the common caldrons, placed upon two stones in a dark stone building which could never be kept clean, were in use. They met with the approval of both Drs. Hall and Taylor. I explained to these gentlemen, that with those stoves and a few planks, an excellent hospital or camp-kitchen could easily be made, instead of the very inferior ones before in use; and that for an army of a hundred thousand men or more, it would only be necessary to increase the number, as the stoves would never get out of repair, and might easily be carried with the army, either on mules, or by any other conveyance which the Land Transport Corps might adopt. The two following letters confirm the truth