The first of these requirements encounters one of our dogged insular
prejudices. The slaves to these firmly believe that meat can only be
roasted by hanging it up to dry in front of an open fire; their savage
ancestors having held their meat on a skewer or spit over or before an
open fire, modern science must not dare to demonstrate the wasteful
folly of the holy sacrifice. Their grandmothers having sent joints to
a bakehouse, where other people did the same, and having found that
by thus cooking beef, mutton, pork, geese, etc., some fresh, and some
stale, in the same oven, the flavors became somewhat mixed, and all
influenced by sage and onions, these people persist in believing that
meat cannot be roasted in any kind of closed chamber.
Rumford proved the contrary, and everybody who has fairly tried the
experiment knows that a properly ventilated and properly heated
roasting oven produces an incomparably better result than the old
desiccating process.
Rumford’s roaster was a very remarkable contrivance, that seems to have
been forgotten. It probably demands more intelligence in using it than
is obtainable in a present-day kitchen. When the School Boards have
supplied a better generation of domestic servants we may be able to
restore its use.
It is a cylindrical oven with a double door to prevent loss of heat. In
this the meat rests on a grating over a specially constructed gravy and
water dish. Under the oven are two “blow-pipes,” _i.e._, stout tubes
standing just above the fire so as to be made red hot, and opening into
the oven at the back, and above the fireplace in front, where there is
a plug to be closed or open as required. Over the front part of the top
of the oven is another pipe for carrying away the vapor. It is thus
used: The meat is first cooked in an atmosphere of steam formed by the
boiling of water placed in the bottom of the double dish, over which
the meat rests. When by this means the meat has been raised throughout
its whole thickness to the temperature at which its albumen coagulates,
the plugs are removed from the blow-pipes, and _then_ the special
action of roasting commences by the action of a current of superheated
air which enters below and at the back of the oven, travels along and
finds exit above and in front of the steam-pipe before named.
The result is a practical attainment of theoretical perfection. Instead
of the joint being dried and corticated outside, made tough, leathery,
and flavorless to about an inch of depth, then fairly cooked an inch
further, and finally left raw, disgusting, and bloody in the middle, as
it is in the orthodox roasting by British cooks, the whole is uniformly
cooked throughout without the soddening action of mere boiling or
steaming, as the excess of moisture is removed by the final current of
hot dry air thrown in by the blow-pipes, which at the same time give
the whole surface an uniform browning that can be regulated at will
without burning any portion or wasting the external fat.
Rumford’s second rule, that air be admitted only from below, and be
limited to the requirements, is so simple that no comment upon it is
needed. Although we have done so little in the improvement of domestic
fireplaces, great progress has been made in engine furnaces, blast
furnaces, and all other fireplaces for engineering and manufacturing
purposes. Every furnace engineer now fully appreciates Rumford’s
assertion that excess of cold air is a thief.
The third rule is one which, as I have already stated, stands
seriously in the way of any commercial “pushing” of Rumford’s kitchen
ranges. Those which he figures and describes are all of them masonic
structures, not ironmongery; the builder must erect them, they cannot
be bought ready-made; but, now that public attention is roused, I
believe that any builder who will study Rumford’s plans and drawings,
which are very practically made, may do good service to himself and his
customers by fitting up a few houses with true Rumford kitcheners, and
offering to reconstruct existing kitchen ranges, especially in large
houses.
The fourth rule is one that is sorely violated in the majority of
kitcheners, and without any good reason. The heat from the fire of any
kitchener, whether it be of brick or iron, should first do the work
demanding the highest temperature, viz., roasting and baking, then
proceed to the boiler or boilers, and after this be used for supplying
the bed-rooms and bath-room, and the housemaid, etc., with hot water
for general use, as Rumford did in his house at Brompton Row, where his
chimney terminated in metal pipes that passed through a water-tank at
the top of the house.
Linen-closets may also be warmed by this residual heat.
The fifth rule is also violated to an extent that renders the words
uttered by Rumford nearly a century ago as applicable now as then. He
said, “Nothing is so ill-judged as most of those attempts that are
frequently made by ignorant projectors _to force the same fire to
perform different services at the same time_.”
Note the last words, “same time.” In the uses above mentioned the
heat does different work successively, which is quite different from
the common practice of having flues to turn the flame of one fire in
opposite directions, to split its heat and make one fireplace appear to
do the work of two.
Every householder knows that the kitchen fire, whether it be an
old-fashioned open fireplace, or a modern kitchener of any improved
construction, is a very costly affair. He knows that its wasteful work
produces the chief item of his coal bill, but somehow or other he is
helpless under its infliction. If he has given any special attention to
the subject he has probably tried three or four different kinds without
finding any notable relief. Why is this? I venture to make a reply that
will cover 90 per cent, or probably 99 per cent of these cases, viz.,
that he has never considered the main source of waste, which Rumford so
clearly defines as above, and which was eliminated in all the kitchens
that he erected.
Let us suppose the case of a household of ten persons, but which in the
ordinary course of English hospitality _sometimes_ entertains twice
that number. What do we find in the kitchen arrangements? Simply that
there is one fireplace suited for the maximum requirements, _i.e._,
sufficient for twenty, even though that number may not be entertained
more than half a dozen times in the course of a year. To cook a few
rashers of bacon, boil a few eggs, and boil a kettle of water for
breakfast, a fire sufficient to cook for a dinner party of twenty is at
work. This is kept on all day long, because it is just possible that
the master of the house may require a glass of grog at bedtime. There
may be dampers and other devices for regulating this fire, but such
regulation, even if applied, does very little so long as the capacity
of the grate remains, and as a matter of ordinary fact the dampers and
other regulating devices are neglected altogether; the kitchen fire is
blazing and roaring to waste from 6 or 7 A.M. to about midnight, in
order to do about three hours and a half work, _i.e._, the dinner for
ten, and a nominal trifle for the other meals.
In Rumford’s kitchens, such as those he built for the Baron de
Lerchenfeld and for the House of Industry at Munich, the kitchener
is a solid block of masonry of work-bench height at top, and with a
deep bay in the middle, wherein the cook stands surrounded by his
boilers, steamers, roasters, ovens, etc., all within easy reach, each
one supplied by its own separate fire of very small dimensions, and
carefully closed with non-conducting doors. Each fire is lighted when
required, charged with only the quantity of fuel necessary for the work
to be done, and then extinguished or allowed to die out.
It is true that Rumford used wood, which is more easily managed in this
way than coal. If we worked as he did, we might use wood likewise,
and in spite of its very much higher price do our cooking at half
its present cost. This would effect not merely “smoke abatement” but
“smoke extinction” so far as cooking is concerned. But the lighting
of fires is no longer a troublesome and costly process as in the days
of halfpenny bundles of firewood. To say nothing of the improved
fire-lighters, we have gas everywhere, and nothing is easier than to
fix or place a suitable Bunsen or solid flame burner under each of the
fireplaces (an iron gaspipe, perforated _below_ to avoid clogging, will
do), and in two or three minutes the coals are in full blaze; then the
gas may be turned off. The writer has used such an arrangement in his
study for some years past, and starts his fire in full blaze in three
minutes quite independent of all female interference.
I have no doubt that ultimately gas will altogether supersede coal for
cooking; but this and all other scientific improvements in domestic
comfort and economy must be impossible with the present generation of
uneducated domestics, whose brains (with few exceptions) have become
torpid and wooden from lack of systematic exercise during their period
of growth.