Substitutes for Pots and Kettles.--It is possible to boil water over a
slow fire in many kinds of vessels that would be destroyed by a greater
degree of heat. In bark, wooden, skin, and even paper vessels, it is
quite possible to boil water. The ruder tribes of the Indian Archipelago
use a bamboo to boil their rice: "The green cane resisting the fire
sufficiently long for the cooking of one mass of rice." (Crawfurd.) If,
however, you have no vessel that you choose to expose to the risk of
burning, you must heat stones and drop them into the water it contains;
but sandstones, especially are apt to shiver and make grit. The Dacota
Indians, and very probably other tribes also, used to boil animals in
their own hide. The description runs thus: "They stuck four stakes in the
ground, and tied the four corners of the hide up to them, leaving a
hollow in the middle; three or four gallons of water, and the meat cut up
very fine, were then put in; three or four hot stones, each the size of a
6-lb. cannon-shot, cooked the whole into a good soup." To a fastidious
palate, the soot, dirt, and ashes that are usually mixed up with the
soup, are objectionable; but these may be avoided by a careful cook, who
dusts and wipes the stones before dropping them in. The specific heat of
stone is much less than that of water, so that the heating power of a
measure of stone is only about one-half of that of an equal measure of
equally hot water.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290