dining-hall; but I do not know that any advantages were derived from that practice; the soup being, to all appearances, quite as good since the barley and the peas have been cooked together as before.

As soon as the soup is done, and the boilers are emptied, they are immediately refilled with water, and the barley for the soup for the next day is put into it, and left to steep over night; and at six o'clock the next morning the fires are lighted under the boilers⁸.

The peas, however, are never suffered to remain in the water over-night, as we have found, by repeated trials, that they never boil soft if the water in which they are boiled is not boiling hot when they are put into it.--Whether this is peculiar to the peas which grow in Bavaria, I know not.

When I began to feed the Poor of Munich, there was also a quantity of meat boiled in their soup; but as the quantity was small, and the quality of it but very indifferent, I never thought it contributed much to rendering the victuals more nourishing: but as soon as means were found for rendering the soup palatable without meat, the quantity of it used was gradually diminished, and it was at length entirely omitted. I never heard that the Poor complained of the want of it; and much doubt whether they took notice of it.

The management of the fire in cooking is, in all cases, a matter of great importance; but in no case is it so necessary to be attended to as in preparing the cheap and nutritive soups here recommended. --Not only the palatableness, but even the strength or richness of the soup, seems to depend very much upon the management of the heat employed in cooking it.

From the beginning of the process to the end of it, the boiling should be as gentle as possible;-- and if it were possible to keep the soup always just boiling hot,without actually boiling, it would be so much the better.

Causing any thing to boil violently in any culinary process is very ill judged; for it not only does not expedite, even in the smallest degree, the process of cooking, but it occasions a most enormous waste of fuel; and by driving away with the steam many of the more volatile and more savoury particles of the ingredients, renders the victuals less good and less palatable. --To those who are acquainted with the experimental philosophy of heat, and who know that water once brought to be boiling hot, however gently it may boil in fact, cannot be made any hotter, however large and intense the fire under it may be made, and who know that it is by the heat--that is to say, the degree or intensify of it, and the time of its being continued, and not by the bubbling up or boiling, (as it is called) of the water that culinary operations are performed--this will be evident, and those who know that more than five times as much heat is required to send off in steam any given quantity of water already boiling hot as would be necessary to heat the same quantity of ice-cold water to the boiling point--will see the enormous waste of heat, and consequently of fuel, which, in all cases must result from violent boiling in culinary processes.

To prevent the soup from burning to the boiler, the bottom of the boiler should be made double; the false bottom, (which may be very thin) being fixed on the inside of the boiler, the two sheets of copper being every where in contact with each other; but they ought not to be attached to each other with solder, except only at the edge of the false bottom where it is joined to the sides of the boiler.--The false bottom should have a rim about an inch and a half wide, projecting upwards, by which it should be riveted to the sides of the boiler; but only few rivets, or nails, should be used for fixing the two bottoms together below, and those used should be very small; otherwise where large nails are employed at the bottom of the boiler, where the fire is most intense, the soup will be apt to burn to; at least on the heads of those large nails.

The two sheets of metal may be made to touch each other every where, by hammering them together after the false bottom is fixed in its place; and they may be tacked together by a few small rivets placed here and there, at considerable distances from each other; and after this is done, the boiler may be tinned.