The reason of this is simply that much or all of the fat is burnt and wasted when only a thin film is spread on the bottom of the pan, while no such waste occurs when the bath of fat is properly used. The temperature at which the dissociation of fat _commences_ is below that required for delicately browning the surface of the fish itself, or of the flour or bread-crumbs, and therefore no fat is burnt away from the bath, as it is by the over-heated portions of a merely greased frying-pan; and as regards the quantity adhering to the fish itself, this may be reduced to a minimum by withdrawing it from the bath when _the whole_ is uniformly at the maximum cooking temperature, and allowing the fluid fat to drain off at once. It may be supposed that by complete immersion of the fish in the fat-bath, more fat will soak into it, but such is not the case; the water amidst the fibres of the fish is boiling and driving out steam so rapidly that no fat can enter if the heat is well maintained to the last moment, and the frying not continued too long. When cooked on the greased plate, one side is necessarily cooling, and the fat settling down into the fish to occupy the pores left vacuous by the condensing steam, while the other is being heated from below. The temperature of the fat-bath may be tested by the ordinary cook’s method—that of throwing into it a small piece of bread-crumb about the size of a nut. If it frizzles and produces large bubbles of steam, the full temperature of frying in the hottest of fat is reached; if it frizzles slightly, and only gives out small steam-bubbles, you have the temperature demanded for slow frying. The bath-frying demands separate supplies of fat[9]—one for fish, another for cutlets and other similar kinds of meat, a third for such goody-goodies as apple-fritters—a most wholesome and delicious dish, too rarely seen on English tables. I suspect that the prevalence of the greased frying-pan is the reason of its rarity. Cooked by this barbaric device, apples are scarcely eatable, but when thin slices are immersed in a bath of melted fat at a temperature of about 300° Fahr., the water of their juice is suddenly boiled, and as this water is contained in a multitude of little bladderlike cells, they burst, and the whole structure is puffed out to a most delicate lightness, far more suitable for following solid meats than soddened fruit enveloped in heavy indigestible pudding-paste. Another advantage is that with proper apparatus (wire basket, kettle, and store of special fat) the fritters can be prepared and cooked in about one-tenth of the time demanded for the preparation and cookery of an apple pudding or pie. A few seconds of immersion in the fat-bath is sufficient.