PAPER BAG COOKERY

Southland Times, Issue 16786, 14 July 1911, Page 3

PAPER BAG COOKERY

A REVOLUTION. LONDON, June 2. The most experienced London chefs—including several who are almost as well known in the West End as Cabinet Ministers —have all approved In varying degrees of the movement for dispensing with pots and pans and having domestic cookery done in paper bags. An old idea, revived and improved upon, it is now assuming the proportions of a popular craze. Paper bag cookery is commended chiefly for three reasons—that it enables the nutritive juices of the food to be fully retained, that it puts an end to kitchen smells, and that it saves labour. For once there is a point of common interest between the fastidious epicure who has tried bagged quail at the Metropole (and found it delicious) and the middle-class housewife who endeavours to combine the keeping of a good table with economy in the matter of kitchen service. The paper bags used are specially made of pure wood. pulp, in various sizes, ranging from 6 inches by 41£ inches to 20 indies by 15 inches. Having been filled with the food they are closed with wire clips and placed on a grid or wire trivet in the oven, which must previously have been heated to 200 deg. With reasonable care almost anything can be cooked in this way—even a juicy Irish stew —and the time taken in the process is rather less than that required for the preparation of food in metal or earthenware utensils. DEMONSTRATION AT MELBOURNE. The first demonstration of paper bag cookery held in Melbourne took place last week at the Ladies’ Training College, Empire Arcade, before a limited number of cookery enthusiasts. Of these a good proportion was frankly sceptical, and no one was prepared for the manner in which the demonstration proved all arguments in favour of the system, so much before the public both here and elsewhere. The ovens, all heatdd to a temperature of 200 deg., were fitted with the necessary grid, and in this oiled paper bags, filled with the materials to be cooked, and fastened with metal clips, were duly placed. The principal of the college maintains that the system includes slow and perfect cooking as well as the faster varieties. The menu consisted of baked fish with sauce, curry and rice, baked rabbit, mock duck, cauliflower, vegetable rolls, and baked potatoes. All these dishes were perfectly cooked, and when dished presented an unusually attractive appearance. The enthusiasm of the spectators reached, however, a still higher pitch at the sight of jam tarts, the puff pastry which went to make these being as flaky and delicate as the most exacting chef could demand. Apple and rice snowballs was another sweet that provoked much comment. Cornflour biscuits and scones, both in excellent condition, gave further proof of the possibilities of the system.