The Chemistry of Cookery

fungus, and the grape disease—had brought about general privation. There was no wine at all; potato spirit and coarse beer had taken its place. Monotonous ‘polenta,’ a sort of paste or porridge made from Indian corn meal, to which they give the contemptuous name of ‘miserabile,’ was then the general food, and much drunkenness was the natural consequence. CHAPTER VI. COUNT RUMFORD’S ROASTER. IN the third volume of his ‘Essays, Political, Economical, and Philosophical,’ page 129, Count Rumford introduces this subject, with the following apology, which I repeat and adopt. He says: ‘I shall, no doubt, be criticised by many for dwelling so long on a subject which to them will appear low, vulgar, and trifling; but I must not be deterred by fastidious criticisms from doing all I can do to succeed in what I have undertaken. Were I to treat my subject superficially, my writing would be of no use to anybody, and my labour would be lost; but by investigating it thoroughly, I may, perhaps, engage others to pay that attention to it which, from its importance, it deserves.’ This subject of roasting occupied a large amount of Count Rumford’s attention while he was in England residing in Brompton Road, and founding the Royal Institution. His efforts were directed not merely to cooking the meat effectively, but to doing so economically. Like all others who have contemplated thoughtfully the habits of Englishmen, he was shocked at the barbaric waste of fuel that everywhere prevailed in this country, even to a greater extent then than now. The first fact that necessarily presented itself to his mind was the great amount of heat that is wasted, when an ordinary joint of meat is suspended in front of an ordinary coal fire to intercept and utilise only a small fraction of its total radiation. As far as I am aware, there is no other country in Europe where such a process is indigenous. I say ‘indigenous,’ because there certainly are hotels where this or any other English extravagance is perpetrated to please Englishmen who choose to pay for it. What