Paper-bag Cookery

spoons to wash up, and that over, cook may sit down to rest. This, in itself, is such an immense saving of labour and time, that the mistress who adopts "Papakukery" may be said to have gone far towards solving the servant problem. THE BEST OVEN TO USE. A gas-cooker is undoubtedly the best for paper-bag cookery, as the ease with which the heat is regulated, and a steady even degree maintained, the little attention it requires while the food is cooking, make it ideal for all ways of preparing food, but especially for the method now under consideration. Gas is absolutely perfection for paper-bag cookery. But all houses are not supplied with gas, and even if they are, the economical housewife may prefer to cook by coal fires, at all events in winter, when the kitchen-range is alight all day long, or when it is going for the purpose of getting hot water for baths. An ordinary coal heated kitchen-range will answer very well for paper-bag cookery, if a little care and attention be given to the matter. The cook must firmly impress on her mind that the bags must _not_ be laid on a solid baking sheet, but on a wire grid, which may be cheaply acquired at an ironmonger's; that the oven must be heated to 220° Fahr. before the food is put into it--a cooking thermometer is not an expensive item; and that, though the heat may be lessened after some twenty minutes, the fire must not be allowed to go down and then be built up again to complete the cookery. If the bags are put on a hot baking sheet, the cooking will be a failure, because it is necessary for the hot air to circulate round the food and completely surround it; besides, the bags will burst as soon as they are laid on a hot solid surface. [Illustration] When cooking in a gas oven, it must be remembered that the gas must be lighted and left full on for ten minutes before the food is put in, and also that the lower