Fig. 91
This "fireless cooker" was sitting in the centre of the dinner table when the guests gathered around it. We had these problems for investigation:
1. Will this cooker heat the house in summer?
All testified that they did not know that there was any heat about it until they laid their hands upon it, and then they found it only very slightly warm.
2. Is there any smell of cooking here? The process has been carried on from start to finish right on this table.
All agreed that no smell could be detected.
I then turned off the electric current which had been running until now and served the meat and vegetable, leaving the pudding inside to be kept warm by the hot walls of the cooker.
3. Regarding the control of the process: we were using 32-candle-power lamps, which gave us a variable current, from 0 to 4 amperes, and a watch and a thermometer. We had control, but as yet lacked knowledge of how it should be used. In the present case we had arbitrarily decided to begin with temperature of 400 degrees, continue it for 20 minutes, then turn off all the electric current, and let the temperature fall gradually. This had been done at our convenience in the morning before school. At a quarter before twelve we had found the temperature at 200 degrees, and turned on all the current, and now, at five minutes past twelve o'clock, all testified that the lamb was particularly good—neither too well done nor undercooked, and that its flavour was better than usual.
As for economy of fuel, we find at least that we get better results from incandescent lamps than from hot plates used in the same apparatus, and the electric equipment enables us to put the heat exactly where it is needed and nowhere else.