AN IMPROVED COOKING UTENSIL
Year: 1859

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Ebenezer Stevens, of No. 5, Patriot Row, Cambridge
Road, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED
COOKING UTENSIL."
Sealed the 15th July 1859, and dated the 19th January 1859.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Ebenezer Stevens at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
19th January 1859.
I, EBENEZER STEVENS, of No. 5, Patriot Row, Cambridge Road, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED COOKING UTENSIL," to be as follows, that is to say :-
My Invention relates to improvements in the cooking utensil commonly
called a baking dish, whereby I combine in one apparatus a stew pan, a
pudding and pie dish, a perforated stand or tray for cooking vegetables, a rack
or stand upon which meat or other material may be placed for the purpose of
being roasted or baked, and a portable oven, which may be either ventilated
or otherwise. The lower portion of my improved utensil consists of a vessel
of any convenient shape or size, and similar to an ordinary stew pan.
Another vessel of similar form and any convenient depth is formed with a
diaphragm dividing it into two vessels of equal or unequal depths. This
vessel when placed upon the before-mentioned stew pan, after the manner of
the lid of a saucepan, will form either a pudding or pie dish, or may be used
for any other similar purpose, according to which side is placed uppermost.
Across the centre of one side of this-vessel I place, when required, a division i

page_text: which separates it into two dishes. A dish or stand, with a perforated bottom,
and supported by a socket fitting upon a pin or stud attached to the centre of
the before-mentioned pudding or pie dish, forms the third portion of my
improved utensil, and this may be used either for holding vegetables or for
other purposes, and a metal or other stand, supported also by a socket fitting
upon a stud or pin upon the perforated dish before mentioned, forms that por-
tion of the apparatus upon which meat or other material may be placed to be
baked or roasted. Over this apparatus, and fitting either upon the rim of the
lower dish or stew pan, or supported by any other convenient means, I place
a dome or other shaped vessel, with or without an escape valve or orifice,
which covers and encloses all the dishes containing food or other material to
be cooked, and thereby convert the whole apparatus, when placed before a fire,
or in any heated receptacle, into a portable oven, which may be either close or
ventilated at pleasure.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Ebenezer Stevens in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
19th July 1859.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EBENEZER
STEVENS, of No. 5, Patriot Row, Cambridge Road, in the County of Middlesex,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters.
Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, in the twenty-second year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Ebenezer Stevens, Her special licence that I, the said Ebenezer
Stevens, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said Ebenezer Stevens, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at
any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for
"AN IMPROVED COOKING UTENSIL," upon the condition (amongst others) that
I, the said Ebenezer Stevens, my executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be

page_text: filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Ebenezer Stevens, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
My Invention relates to improvements in the cooking utensil commonly
denominated a baking dish, and consists in the construction and arrangement
of an apparatus in which I combine a stand upon which meat or other sub-
stance may be roasted or baked, a dish in which vegetables may be cooked, a
pudding and pie dish, and a stew pan. For this purpose I construct a vessel
similar to an ordinary stew pan, which may be round or of any other con-
venient shape. Another vessel of similar form is also made having a rim on
each side at right angles to its bottom, which rims being of unequal widths,
thus forming two vessels of unequal depths. This vessel when placed within
the stew pan, after the manner of a lid of a saucepan, with its shallowest
side upwards, forms a pudding tin, and when its position is reversed, or the
deepest side is placed upwards, it forms a pie dish. A dish with a perforated
bottom, and supported by metal legs or stands, when aced in the last named
pudding tin or pie dish, forms a vessel in which vegetables may be cooked, the
perforations allowing the fat or gravy from meat, which may be cooked above
it, to pass through the vegetables into the vessel below, and in this dish or
coleander a stand made of metal or other substance may be placed to receive
meat or other material to be roasted, thus forming, when complete, a meat
stand, a vegetable dish, a pudding and pie dish, and a stew pan in one utensil,
the whole of which may be used as one combined apparatus, or any one or
more parts thereof may be used separately.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention and the manner of per-
forming the same, I would have it understood that I make no claim to any of
the parts separately, nor do I confine myself to the details described; but
what I claim is the combination herein explained.
In witness whereof, I, the said Ebenezer Stevens, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
EBENEZER STEVENS. (L.S.)