A type of pot used during the colonial era, as well as in Victorian England in general, Captain Warren’s Cooking Pot served many purposes. Mrs. Beeton wrote of it, giving dimensions and prices, in her Book of Household Management. The pot closely resembles the couscousière, a pot used in North Africa for making couscous and familiar to the French there, and an Asian bamboo steamer, another utensil familiar to the French.
Probably by means of this invention less food is wasted than in any other known methods of cooking. For instance, when a leg of mutton is roasted or baked, a certain amount of flavour and nutriment must of necessity go up the chimney; or when a leg of mutton is boiled, a certain amount of juice necessarily goes into the water in which it is boiled. Warren’s Cooking Pot cooks meat in an almost air-tight chamber, heated by steam. Thus the meat cooks in its own vapour. W is a large oval-shaped pot, into which is fitted an inner case A, leaving a space into which water is poured. The lid C may now be placed on, and the pot, so far as cooking meat is concerned, is complete. The meat of course is placed in the chamber A. The pot is placed on the fire, and the water in W kept boiling, the steam of course arising and surrounding the chamber A, but not entering it. The lid C is made double for the purpose of condensing the steam, which runs back into W. There is, however, a small hole in the lid C in the top, in order to let out the steam should it boil too fast. A good-sized leg of mutton takes about three hours to cook by this means. …
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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