The first person, perhaps, with any pretensions to learning and philosophy, who studied the dressing of meat, for food, as a science, was a gentleman of the name of Thompson, who was afterwards created Count Romford, by one of the German princes. This excellent and ingenious individual lived in the last century. He demonstrated, by experiments, the principles which in our foregoing remarks we have merely asserted. We are about to give an abstract of some of his observations and experiments on this subject, which are so simply and clearly detailed, that they are perfectly intelligible to every common intellect, and we are sure will be read with interest and advantage, not only by cooks, but also by all classes of persons interested in the health and welfare of society at large.

The process by which food is most commonly prepared for the table - boiling - is so*familiar to every one, and its effects are so uniform, and apparently so simple, that few have taken the trouble to inquire how, or in what manner, these effects are produced; and whether any and what improvements in that branch of cookery are possible. So little has this matter been made an object of inquiry, that few, very few indeed, it is believed, among the millions of persons who for so many ages have been daily employed in this process, have ever given themselves the trouble to bestow one serious thought on the subject.

The cook knows from experience, that if his joint of meat be kept a certain time immersed in boiling water it will be done, as it is called it he language of the kitchen; but if he be asked what is done to it? or how, or by what agency, the change it has undergone has been effected? if he understands the question, it is ten to one but he will be embarrassed; if he does not understand it, he will probably answer, without hesitation, that " the meat is made tender and eatable by being boiled" Ask him if the boiling of the water be essential to the success of the process? he will answer, "without doubt" Push him a little farther, by asking him whether, were it possible to keep the water equally hot without boiling, the meat would not be cooked as soon and as well, as if the water were made to boil 1 Here it is probable that he will make the first step towards acquiring knowledge, by learning to doubt.

When you have brought him to see the matter in its true light, and to confess, that in this view of it, the subject is new to him, you may venture to tell him (and to prove to him, if you happen to have a thermometer at hand,) that water which just boils is as hot as it can possibly be made in an open vessel. That all the fuel which is used in making it boil with violence is wasted, without adding in the smallest degree to the heat of the water, or expediting or shortening the process of cooking a single instant: that it is by the heat - its intensity - and the lime of its duration, that the food is cooked; and not by boiling or ebullition or bubbling up of the water, which has no part whatever in that operation.

Should any doubts still remain with respect to the inefficacy and inutility of boiling, in culinary processes, where the same degree of heat may be had, and be kept up without it, let a piece of meat be cooked in a Papin's digester, which, as is well known, is a boiler whose cover (which is fastened down with screws) shuts with so much nicety that no steam can escape out of it. In such a closed vessel, boiling (which is nothing else but the escape of steam in bubbles from the hot liquid) is absolutely impossible; yet, if the heat applied to the digester be such as would cause an equal quantity of water in an open vessel to boil, the meat will not only be done, but it will be found to be dressed in a shorter time, and to be much tenderer, than if it had been boiled in an open boiler. By applying a still greater degree of heat to the digester, the meat may be so much done in a very few minutes as actually to fall to pieces, and even the very bones may be made soft.

Were it a question of mere idle curiosity, .whether it be the boiling of water, or simply the degree of heat that exists in boiling water by which food is cooked, it would doubtless be folly to throw away time in its investigation; but this is far from being the case, for boiling cannot be carried on without a very great expense of fuel; but any boiling hot liquid (by using proper means for confining the heat) may be kept boiling hot for any length of time, without any expense of fuel at all.

The waste of fuel in culinary processes, which arises from making liquids boil unnecessarily, or when nothing more would be necessary than to keep them boiling hot, is enormous; there is not a doubt but that much more than half the fuel used in all the kitchens, public and private, in the whole world, is wasted precisely in this manner.

But the evil does not stop here. This unscientific and slovenly manner of cooking renders the process much more laborious and troublesome than otherwise it would be; and (what by many will be considered of more importance than either the waste of fuel, or the increase of labour to the cook) the food is rendered less savoury, and very probably less nourishing, and certainly less wholesome.

It is natural to suppose that many of the finer and more volatile parts of food (those which are best calculated to act on the organs of taste) must be carried off with the steam, when the boiling is violent: but the fact does not rest on these reasonings: it is proved to a demonstration, not only by the agreeable fragrance of the steam that rises from vessels in which meat is boiled, but also from the strong flavour and superior quality of soups which are prepared by a long process over a very slow, gentle fire. But the volatile parts of food are not only delightful to the organs of taste - the Editor has no doubt that they are also stimulating and refreshing to the stomach.

In many countries where soups constitute the principal part of the food of the inhabitants, the process of cooking lasts from one meal time to another, and is performed almost without either trouble or expense.