INTRODUCTION.
=Chafing-dishes Past and Present.= Well, he was an ingenious man that first found out eating and drinking .-- _Swift._ How fire was discovered, when it was first applied to the needs of human beings, the origin and early use of cooking and heating utensils,--all are concealed from us in the mists that surround the life of prehistoric man.

But at the dawn of history, even before the beginning of our era, crude appliances for cooking were in use; and, without doubt, one of the earliest of these was an utensil corresponding in some particulars, at least, to the chafing-dish of to-day.
The chafing-dish is a portable utensil used upon the table, either for cooking food or for keeping food hot after it has been cooked by other means.

In ancient times, the fuel of the chafing-dish was either live coals or olive oil; to-day we use either electricity, gas, alcohol or colonial spirits.
The first chafing-dishes of which historic mention is made consisted of a pan heated over a pot of burning oil, the pan resting upon a frame which held the pot of oil.

It was with such an utensil, perhaps, that the Israelitish women cooked the locusts of Egypt and Palestine, for these were eaten as a common food by the people of the biblical lands and age.
Mommsen, in his history of Rome, while speaking of the extravagance of the times, as shown in the table furnishings, probably refers to the chafing-dish when he says: "A well-wrought bronze cooking-machine came to cost more than an estate." The idea that this might be the utensil referred to is strengthened by the fact that many chafing-dishes have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.

These were made of bronze, and highly ornamented.