The economy in using the fireless cooker is not confined solely to a saving in gas and labor. There is also an actual and great economy in food, for there is almost no waste in this method of cooking. Take for example a 5-pound piece of beef from the round. Put this in the kettle of the fireless cooker with a pint of water for each pound of meat. Heat it on the gas range slowly, taking about twenty minutes to bring it to the boiling point. Then, according to directions, place it in the fireless cooker and finish the cooking. When it is done and tender, it will be found that there is only a minute loss in weight; to be exact, 2 ounces for 5 pounds. You bought 5 pounds of meat and have to serve on your table 4 pounds and 14 ounces. You could not make any such showing if you had cooked the meat on a gas or coal range.
Four pounds and 14 ounces, however, is not all that you have to serve. You originally added to your meat 5 pints of water. A little of this evaporated or cooked away in the twenty minutes primary cooking on the stove. All the rest is retained, for there is absolutely no evaporation in a fireless cooker. This water has added to it the nutritive value and flavor acquired from the meat. So besides your 4 pounds and 14 ounces of meat you have over 4 pints of rich soup stock which has cost you absolutely nothing, as it is a by-product of the system of fireless cooking.
"But," objects some one, "the meat cooked in such wise will have lost all its juice and flavor." On the contrary, there is a distinct gain in the matter of flavor in fireless cookery. We absolutely know this to be so, for we have had various cuts of meat, especially the cheaper cuts, cooked in a fireless cooker and the dishes so prepared have been submitted to competent judges; the opinion was unanimous that there was a real difference between the flavor of meats so cooked and that of corresponding cuts cooked after the usual methods, and that the delicacy and richness of flavor lay with those meats cooked by the fireless method.
When one understands the principles of cookery this richness of flavor of meats cooked by the fireless method is not surprising. Every one knows the proverbial deliciousness of French cookery. The special peculiarity of the French cuisine is the long, slow simmering of meats in closely covered earthen pots called casseroles. The principle is essentially that of the fireless cooker, but the casserole not being insulated, the French cook is obliged to keep on supplying a sufficient degree of heat to keep the casserole warm and its contents simmering.
Examples of fireless cooking with which many persons are familiar by experience or hearsay are the foods cooked in primitive ways, whose deliciousness is generally ascribed to the "hunger sauce" that accompanies outdoor cookery. Among such examples are the burying of the saucepan in a hole in the ground, the cooking of food by dropping heated stones into the mixture, and the clambake known among the Narragansett Indians. In all these cases we have the principle of the fireless cooker—i. e., closely-covered food slowly cooked at low temperature. Indeed, one fireless cooker is constructed directly on the principle employed in the New England clambake, and every one knows the deliciousness of food so cooked has become proverbial.
By the fireless cooker the cheaper cuts of meat can be cooked so that they are delicious, appetizing, tender. There is here a distinct saving in money, for by the employment of the fireless method of cooking, the cheaper cuts of meat can be made to serve all the purposes of the higher-priced pieces. Further, if the meats are stewed, boiled, or steamed, you also acquire at no cost whatever as many pints of delicious soup stock, less one, as you have pounds of meat.
Let us now recapitulate the advantages of fireless cooking:—
A Fireless Cooker Saves Money
1. Because by its use cheaper meats can be made to answer as well as higher-priced cuts.
2. Because out of a given quantity of raw material you get, after the cooking is done, more actual food than by any other method.