Cooking and heating in Colonial America

[begreen]

I read a good article this morning on Colonial fireplaces. It's interesting to see how ideas developed over time.

http://colonial-american-life.blogspot.com/2009/08/early-american-fireplaces-and-cooking.html

I spied a great old cast iron stove in this article. Had to research that a bit and came up with an interesting history story on the Buzaglo stove too.
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/winter09/cold.cfm

Abraham Buzaglo stove:
http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2010/02/keeping-warm-buzaglo-stoves.html

 

[Flatbedford]

Nice summer reading.

 

[Pagey]

Looking at some of those fireplaces makes me appreciate even more the technology we have in today's stoves. Frozen water and ink in the house? Pass on that, for sure!

 

[begreen]

Growing up in CT, my wife experienced this as a young girl one cold winter morning and finding her goldfish frozen in the bowl. The goldfish survived, but she will never forget that. They were poor and could not afford fuel.

 

[Swedishchef]

Amazing read BG! Great.

That's quite the amazing story about the water of the goldfish bowl freezing!! That reminds me of a friend of mine: I believe I am a fair amount younger than most on this forum....this friend is my age. In high school she used to have to BOIL WATER OVER A FIRE to have a hot bath in the morning. Her father was a modern day Tinker and they had no electricity at their house...and this was 20 years ago! She turned out amazing and regrets nothing to this day...

Andrew

 

[fishingpol]

Nice articles.

I've read local history books where 20+ cords were need for early colonial homes for a winter. Pots of water were kept in front of the hearth ready for cooking and washing up.



If anyone is interested in colonial cooking, check out "Jas. Townsend and sons" on Youtube for colonial cooking recipes and techniques. The videos are well done and very informative.

 

[begreen]

I just quoted this book in the other thread. Put it on order (used) together with the one on Revolutionary Americia. They look fascinating.

http://www.amazon.com/Colonial-Amer...qid=1344902122&sr=1-12&keywords=Thomas+Purvis

 

[BrotherBart]

In high school she used to have to BOIL WATER OVER A FIRE to have a hot bath in the morning.

Dang. My family hasn't had to do that since 1956.

 

[BrotherBart]

Like my sig says. "The good old days, weren't"

 

[begreen]

That's for sure. They didn't trust water so they drank beer all day long then switched to the good stuff near sunset. Sounds awful.

 

[fossil]

A long ways from Colonial America, in both time and distance, but even after the westward expansion and settlement of the west, wood was the fuel du jour. This factoid concerns the steamboats that ran up and down the Columbia River (out here in BeGreen's & my PNW country):

"Most steamboats burned wood, at an average rate of 4 cords an hour. Areas without much wood, such as the Columbia River east of Hood River, required wood to be hauled in and accumulated at wood lots along the river; eventually provision of fuel wood for steamboats itself became an important economic activity."

From this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Columbia_River

Four cords/hour These boats went about 4 mph, so they were getting ~ 1MPC (miles Per Cord).

This is a boat named "Mascot" wooding up on the river (probably the lower Columbia), circa 1900.

 

[begreen]

Yep, cheap energy is what this country was built on. It's still out there, as wind, sun, tidal and geothermal energies. We just need to be thinking leaner and smarter.

 

[BrotherBart]

Well heck. The boats now run on nukes. My electric utility needs one of those suckers that runs a sub.

On the colonial times note, if you visit Colonial Willamsburg you will notice that the cooking took place in a building behind the main house. And that the slaves lived in the quarters above the kitchen. Not saying that they were thinking about if the joint burned down but...

 

[fossil]

Well heck. The boats now run on nukes. My electric utility needs one of those suckers that runs a sub.

On the colonial times note, if you visit Colonial Willamsburg you will notice that the cooking took place in a building behind the main house. And that the slaves lived in the quarters above the kitchen. Not saying that they were thinking about if the joint burned down but...

Well, you'd need about a dozen submarine plants to get up to the capacity of a stationary plant.

I found both Colonial Williamsburg and Mt. Vernon to be fascinating. Actually, I found a lot of stuff in that area to be fascinating. Just like the times I spent in Newport RI. We just don't have any stuff that old out west. Old to us is the 19th century.

 

[BrotherBart]

When we first moved here my wife was some kind of tour guide for Williamsburg. Everybody we knew, and some we didn't, came flying in and she drove them down for the tour. Me, I just used to go to a bar next to William and Mary when I was stationed at Ft. Eustis because they didn't ask for ID. History buff that I am.

 

[firefighterjake]

That's for sure. They didn't trust water so they drank beer all day long then switched to the good stuff near sunset. Sounds awful.

During colonial times apple cider was consumed as the main beverage with meals because water was often unsafe for drinking.[45] Ciderkin, a slightly alcoholic beverage made from cider pomace, could also be found on colonial tables. Sometime after Prohibition the word cider came to mean unfiltered, unfermented apple juice. . . . Wikipedia. Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History, Mack P. Holt.

http://www.essortment.com/hard-apple-cider-history-41713.html

(broken link removed to http://www.woodchuck.com/about-us/history-of-cider.html)

Perhaps one of the best (but apparently dated) internet sources on the demise of cider in the colonies . . . a long read, but kind of interesting to see how our culture switched to beer as the beverage of choice.

 

[Flatbedford]

kind of interesting to see how our culture switched to beer as the beverage of choice.

...and then to Moxie in Maine!

 

[BrotherBart]

The tradition is maintained.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/14/usa-whitehouse-beer-idUSL2E8JEIDQ20120814

Those "Founders" would be proud.

 

[begreen]

There'll be a lot of buzz about that brew for sure.

 

[fossil]

I barley know what to say. This could have vat implications. My hops are that all goes well.

 

[jharkin]

Well heck. The boats now run on nukes. My electric utility needs one of those suckers that runs a sub.

On the colonial times note, if you visit Colonial Willamsburg you will notice that the cooking took place in a building behind the main house. And that the slaves lived in the quarters above the kitchen. Not saying that they were thinking about if the joint burned down but...

Great thread that I missed!!


The houses in Virgina had another reason besides the "labor" force to build the kitchen as a detached building. Due to the hot summers and mild winters, they wanted to keep the heat out of the main house. Its the same reason that end wall chimneys are common in the south, and the windows tend to be a lot bigger.

Up north the houses were often built with central chimneys and the kitchen in the main house close to or under the bed chambers to conserve warmth. In larger wealthier homes, and especially into the 1800s when stoves start to appear you sometimes see houses with a back "ell" addition that have two kitchens - the winter kitchen in the original spot on the back side of the first floor of the main house, and a secondary "summer" kitchen in the ell - again this was to keep the heat of the cooking fire away from the living quarters in the hot summer months.

 

[Ashful]

Here in the mid-Atlantic, separate summer kitchens were the norm, from at least the early1700's. No one wanted a fireplace cooking in the house in July. I've also noticed the fireplaces in summer kitchens are often larger and better equipped than the fireplace in the main house, so maybe they still used those summer kitchens for big holiday meals and baking year 'round, only cooking smaller daily meals in the house.

Another feature often noticed is the low doorways on interior kitchens, sometimes claimed to be made that way because "people were shorter back then," or because "you were supposed to bow when entering a room." It was really just to keep any smoke from escaping the kitchen, into the rest of the house.

 

[BrowningBAR]

Yes, the room that the 30 is going in used to be the Summer Kitchen. Which was just a big fire place, a roof, and usually at least one wall missing so it was more open.

 

[Ashful]

I've seen a few that were more open, as you describe, but just as many (or more) that were enclosed on all four walls. A few of the houses we shopped actually had stone summer kitchens, although many were less substantial wood structures.

It's often claimed by owners of old houses that their summer kitchen was built before the house, and that the family lived there before constructing the main house, but these claims are almost always proven untrue. I suspect summer kitchens just ended up being more simple / crude structures, since they weren't considered part of the public space. Just as few of us today put marble tile in our shed, no one but the owner of the house and the help ever saw them.

My avatar was the summer kitchen of our house. The "new" Jotul 12 is going in what would have been the main kitchen.

 

[Redbarn]

It's often claimed by owners of old houses that their summer kitchen was built before the house, and that the family lived there before constructing the main house, but these claims are almost always proven untrue. I suspect summer kitchens just ended up being more simple / crude structures, since they weren't considered part of the public space. Just as few of us today put marble tile in our shed, no one but the owner of the house and the help ever saw them.

Just have to jump into this thread.

We have a 1810's farm house, the youngest on our road. Our house was researched for the National Register of Historic Places and the history is well documented. We are the only 5th family to own the house. Our neighbors are 10th generation owners of the same property and our other neighbors, only the 3rd family, have the original deed on parchment, signed by the representative of William Penn.

Our settlement sequence was that the land was cleared first, a rudimentary wood hut was believed to be built, then the barn was built (circa 1795). After a few harvests, a small stone building (with 24" thick walls), was built next to a large spring. This became the Summer Kitchen. A stone cistern was built around the spring to form a pool of easily accessible water. After the family prospered, the main house was built and subsequent generations added to it.

The Summer Kitchen has 3 levels. The main floor and the earth floored basement have huge open hearth fireplaces. The basement has a door which is a short carry to the spring and appears to have been used as a laundry. A huge open wood fire must have boiled water.
The first floor was used as a Summer Kitchen. There are reliable stories of a post holding a bell that was used to summon workers to the summer kitchen for meals.
The upper level has a staircase to what were bedrooms. In all likelihood, the founding family lived there before the main house was built. Certainly, there are nails, hooks and graffiti that indicate that this was used as sleeping quarters, probably until well into the late 1800's.

There were few mortgages in those days and so our main house was built in stages over circa 5 years. The roofers scratched their names and the date on the roof truss timbers, indicating structural completion.
It amazes me that given the size of the fireplaces and the huge open fires that must have been set in them, that Summer Kitchens never burned down. Ours is now used as a shed but is in remarkable condition. Old growth timbers do last well.