(A) Baking

Cooking in closed vessels, ovens or other compartments in dry heated air, whether the heat is obtained from adjacent fires, or from steam at a high temperature externally applied, may be regarded as a process of baking. The latter mode in which successful cooking is thus accomplished, without hardening the albuminoid tissues of meat, has been adopted on a large scale for institutions where the demand is constant and uniform in kind. A good example of this is the apparatus patented by Becker, of Berlin (1882). The principle consists in ascertaining the temperatures best adapted for cooking each kind of food - for example, for making soup; for producing tender flesh, juicy, and not over-dried; and for serving vegetables in a condition adapted for digestion. The highest temperature of the three is generally demanded for the last-named, or the longest exposure to heat; for the starch cells throughout the tissue must be burst to scatter their contents, before the required condition is attained. Different compartments in the apparatus are maintained at varied temperatures by regulating the steam supplied to each, and the economy in fuel thus effected on the large scale on which this method is applied is considerable. This plan was adopted and systematically applied a few years ago by my friend, Mr. L. O. Smith, of Stockholm, for the operatives and their families in that city; and detailed accounts of it were published at the time (1884) in this country. And the results were accepted as demonstrating the efficiency and the economy of cookery at low temperatures.

Becker's process; Berlin.