While President Tylor of the British Anthropological Institute was
doubtless right in holding the opinion (already referred to) that
cookery has done more than any other art to help mankind in its
progress from savagery to civilization, it is odd that the latest and
socially, as well as gastronomically, most important phase of this art
takes us back to practices similar to those of primitive man. When
Darwin, in his voyage round the world, tarried in Tahiti, his native
guides on a trip to the interior prepared for him a meal which he
greatly enjoyed. It consisted of pieces of beef, fish, and bananas,
wrapped in large leaves and placed between hot stones, which were then
covered with earth to keep in the heat. In about a quarter of an hour
the viands were "most deliciously cooked."
One who has never had the good luck to taste, at a New England picnic,
beans baked in the ground really does not know beans, though his
home be in Boston. Nor does any one know the epicurean possibilities
inherent in seafood unless he has attended a shore clam-bake, at which
lobsters, clams, and fish, just out of the water and wrapped in layers
of seaweed, were cooked over heated stones, the whole being covered
with more seaweed to prevent the escape of the heat and the flavors.
In these customs we have a survival of the primitive method of cooking
praised by Darwin and numerous explorers and missionaries. Many of the
benighted dwellers in our cities have never even heard of them; but
within the last few years thousands of our kitchens have been provided
with an apparatus which combines the advantages of Tahitian cooking and
Rhode Island clam-bakes with modern conveniences--the cooking-boxes,
or fireless cookers, which many rival manufacturers are now turning
out by wholesale, and which are destined, in combination with gas
and electricity, to bring about within the next ten years a domestic
revolution so complete and far-reaching that future historians, in
summing up the great achievements of the first quarter of the twentieth
century, will probably name as the three most important ones wireless
telegraphy, aviation, and fireless cookery.
[Illustration: Fireless cookery in Hawaii]
Even in this rich country, only one family in ten can afford to hire
a cook, and in the far West such a person is seldom obtainable at any
price. Now, by the fireless cooker all women who have to prepare their
own meals are fast being emancipated from the hot-stove slavery, which
is particularly cruel in our sultry summers. It makes it possible for
them to cook breakfast, luncheon, and dinner at the same time, in
perhaps an hour, leaving the rest of the day free for other work. All
they have to do is to heat the meat, vegetables, cereals, or other
viands on the stove for some minutes (varying with different foods),
and then put them into the air-tight box, which, being lined with
non-conducting substances, cooks them thoroughly, retaining all their
flavors, keeping them hot for six hours, and warm for five or six
longer.
There is a tradition among mistresses that cooks resent innovations
in the kitchen; but no domestic helper will ever balk at a box which
eliminates so much of the kitchen drudgery.
The fireless cooker will therefore go far toward solving the most
difficult of all domestic problems--that of getting some one to help us
in our kitchens.
It is strange that this important service for simplifying cooking
should have had to wait till the twentieth century for its general
adoption. Its principle was known to the ancient Hebrews. Charles
XII got on the trail when he cooked a fat hen while on the march by
inserting within it a piece of hot steel, the whole being placed in a
tin box which was wrapped in a woolen cloth and strapped on a soldier's
back.
It was in the far North that the possibilities of this procedure were
first appreciated in modern times. The general attention of Europe
was directed at the Paris Exposition of 1867 to what was called the
"Norwegian automatic kitchen"--a box in which food that had been heated
to boiling point for a few minutes continued to cook slowly till done.
One would have supposed that such a wonderful saver of fuel, time, and
trouble must have been adopted universally within a few years, all the
more as any one could construct his own cooker out of an ordinary box
lined with felt, hay, paper, sawdust, or some other poor conductor of
heat. But years passed and little was done until some enthusiasts,
prominent among whom was the Grand Duchess of Baden, took up the
propaganda.
Then came the era of auto pianos and automobiles and auto everything.
The automatic cooker was no longer a solitary voice crying in the
wilderness. The manufacturers took it up, and now, especially in the
United States, thousands are sold every day.
Already there are nearly as many "makes" of them as there are of pianos
or automobiles, each claiming special advantages over all others.
With the best of them, boiling, steaming, broiling, baking, frying,
roasting--everything, except crisping and toasting--can be done with
satisfactory results. Soups and stews, in particular, which require
hours of slow cooking at moderate heat, come out of these cookers with
a delicious flavor.
From the gastronomic and dietetic points of view the most important of
all the claims made for the fireless cooker is that the food flavors
previously dissipated through the whole house as "kitchen odors" are
retained in the meats and vegetables, making them exceptionally savory
and appetizing.
It is needless to say that these cookers are of no use for broiling or
frying steaks, chops, bacon, ham, sausages, or griddle cakes, which
require only a few minutes to cook and must be crisp to be enjoyable.
Nor will the presence of a cooker make it any the less necessary for
the mistress or the professional cook to thoroughly understand the
culinary art. They must know about meats, and cereals, and vegetables,
and flavors, and their combinations and extension, to which attention
has been called. It is simply, in all households, valuable because it
preserves flavors, eliminates the danger of burning or overcooking,
reduces the cost of fuel by three-fourths or more, makes it easier
to wash the pots and in other ways saves no end of drudgery; while
for those who have to do their own cooking its advantages in giving
leisure for other work, or diversions while the cooking goes on, are
incalculable. The best of all wedding presents is a fireless cooker.
Automobilists and excursionists in general are finding these boxes a
great convenience. They have also been used in the army.
Many women whose work is away from home hardly have even as much time
to spare as is needed for starting a meal in the cooker. It is likely
that restaurant-keepers and other caterers will be more and more called
upon to prepare specially ordered meals for such cases and send them in
the heat-retaining boxes in which they were made. Expert cooks, in all
probability, will go from house to house to start the cookers.