THE ULTIMATE THERMETTE?

A long time ago, watching flames licking up the outside of their cauldron, someone must have wondered if it would be more efficient to have those flames go up the centre. It’s easy to see why they’d think like that: no chainsaws, no log splitters, every stick obtained by hand, and the next tree always one tree further away — you’d want it all to count. Thus samovars and, later, Kelly Kettles, Thermettes, wetbacks, and califonts; it has been a long tradition.

Hereabouts, we’ve been heading in the wood-fired outdoor-cooking direction for a while (see The Shed Issue No. 98, page 52) and a pair of Thermettes have played their part; a traditional one and a stainless tank of a thing — which I hid while we went away sailing, forgot where, and lost for a decade, but that’s another story.

Then, a couple of months ago, at an auctioneers, I spied what, at first blush, looked