The stove is of japanned tin, and is made in cabinet type and in the ordinary style. It is also in the “best” class. CHAPTER IX COOKING BY ABSENT TREATMENT The fireless cooker is primarily a fuel saver. Secondarily, it has developed into an absent treatment cooker. That is, the food can be cooking while the lady of the house is airing the baby or at church or at club entertainments or while the cook is cleaning the kitchen, laundry and pantry. Thirdly, it cooks thoroughly and longly without the added expense of fuel or effort. It was first made with a box and with excelsior and padding but the manufacturers came to the rescue as they always do to supply a demand and the comfortable fireless cooker was born. Its story is short and sweet and to the point. The essential for the cooker is that it will cook by retained heat. Therefore, it must be built so that there will be no leakage of heat. For this reason it must have perfect insulation. The utensils must have covers that are clamped on so tight that they retain the heat generated by the stove or electric current. The lining should be non-absorbent of odors or “spill.” Therefore practice has proven that aluminum, which does not rust and is easily cleaned, is best for this lining. The linings too, must be smoother than smooth and be as seamless as it is possible for them to be made. For long processes, of course, the heated plates must be able to retain heat and for this, soap stone and iron plates have been found to be the most practical. The cookers can be had with from one to three or four compartments. Therefore, a whole dinner can be cooked. They claim that you can brown with them as well as in the roasting oven. Browning can be to some extent accomplished by an accomplished fireless expert with extra heating of extra plates and the like, but for real crisp browning it is as well to take out the food and rapidly brown in the oven. The best results are gained with the fireless if used in conjunction with gas, oil and electric stoves. With the coal stove there is a loss of fuel saving of somewhere around 50% due to the fact that it takes so much time to get up the fire in a coal stove before the plates are heated sufficiently to do their work in the cooker. Therefore, it is cheaper if you are going to use the fireless to any great extent to have a one burner gas plate on which to heat your plates for the fireless cooking process. FIRELESS STOVES