The Chemistry of Cookery

anywhere else, left it there all night. When they came in the morning to take it away, intending to cook it for their dinner, they were much surprised at finding it _already cooked_, and not merely eatable, but perfectly well done, and most singularly well tasted. This appeared to them the more miraculous, as the fire under the machine was quite gone out before they left the kitchen in the evening to go to bed, and as they had locked up the kitchen when they left it, and taken away the key. ‘This wonderful shoulder of mutton was immediately brought to me in triumph, and though I was at no great loss to account for what had happened, yet it certainly was quite unexpected; and when I tasted the meat I was very much surprised indeed to find it very different, both in taste and flavour, from any I had ever tasted. It was perfectly tender; but though it was so much done it did not appear to be in the least sodden or insipid; on the contrary, it was uncommonly savoury and high flavoured.’ What I have already explained concerning the coagulation of albumen will render this result fairly intelligible. It will be still more so after what follows concerning the effect of heat on the other constituents of a shoulder of mutton. The Norwegian cooking apparatus, to which I have already alluded, and which is now commercially supplied in England, does its work in a somewhat similar manner. It consists of an inner tin pot with well-fitting lid, which fits into a box, having a thick lining of ill-conducting material—such as felt, wool, or sawdust (it should be two or three inches thick bottom and sides). A fowl, for example, is put into the tin, which is then filled up with boiling water and covered with a close-fitting cover lined like the box, and firmly strapped down. This may be left for ten or twelve hours, when the fowl will be found most delicately cooked. For yachtsmen and ‘camping-out’ parties, &c., it is a very luxurious apparatus. FOOTNOTES: