The Magic Stove and the soup kitchens of London and Ireland could be seen as preparatory phases of Soyer’s most lasting contribution to fuel economy and mass cooking: his field stove. Its origin makes interesting historic material. From 1853 to 1856, a relatively small but disproportionately disastrous war was fought on the Crimean peninsula between the Russian army and an allied force consisting of Turkish, French, and British troops. Due to a complete lack of information, military incompetence, and a deplorable state of organization in the field, thousands of men died unnecessarily. Supply lines hardly existed and casualties, once placed in hospitals, were certain to die of hunger and infectious diseases. It was through the reports of the correspondent Lord William Russell, who wrote from the battlefield for the Times, that the British public learned of the abominable situation on the Turkish coast and the Crimean peninsula.14 It was Russell’s, and consequently Florence Nightingale’s, conviction that the staggering number of casualties was not the result of combat, but of fatally bad management.
more from Thomas A. P. Van Leeuwen at Cabinet here.