Note 147 — Chapter IV · FIRE AND FOOD Part II.

Some anthropologists will object, perhaps, that long before pottery existed, the process known as “stone-cooking” or “stone boiling” was probably practised by all primitive peoples. This is possibly true, but to such objectors I reply, that they know as well as I do the tediousness of stone boiling and stone cooking, and that, therefore, the very difficulty of the process itself would remove the chief advantage which stewing possesses over other methods of cooking, which is ease; and thus leave no inducement to primitive man to practise it.