Cooking on a Vintage Stove

stoveOne can only imaging what it must have been like to cook in a vintage home before the invention of the cooking stove. Preparing meals over an open fire could have been no picnic.

The innovations in the cooking stove during the nineteenth century were some of the most needed, and most welcomed.

In addition to the hazards that come with cooking over a fire burned meat, and underdone cakes were just a few of the nuisances that can come from cooking over unregulated fires.

The wood and coal burning stove took the cook out of the fireplace. She was now able to cook and heat a home using less fuel than the with just using the fireplace.

But these new innovative stoves still needed great care in the use and upkeep. With the checking of dampers and flues and keeping an eye on the cinders so that they didn’t go out cooking with a wood stove was still time consuming. Not to mention the cleaning of such a stove which involved removing of ashes and the “blacking” which was to keep it from rusting.

When gas and electricity came on the scene homemaking became a bit more bearable and less hazardous. Women could turn on one burner to heat up a pot instead of an entire wood or coal stove.  There were no dangerous leaping flames to tempt children and destroy clothing.

This quote from The Library of Cookery Vol. 1 explains a few of the differences..

At the beginning of the cooking, the article that is being broiled should be turned often; then, as soon as the outside is browned, the heat should be reduced if possible, as with a gas stove, and the article allowed to cook until done. If the broiling is done over coals, it is necessary to continue the turning during the entire process.
Because gas is so easily handled, good results can be obtained by those who have had very little experience in using it, and with study and practice results become uniform and gas proves to be an economical fuel.

Antique wood burning stoves can still be found in many homes both trying to achieve the antique style and those who appreciate the warmth from a wood burning stove.

Antique Wood Stoves on eBay

July 30, 2009 | | Tags: | Comments Closed

The Care Of Cupboards

There are three methods in general use of caring for cupboards. Some housewives prefer their cupboard shelves of bare wood, to be well scrubbed with soap and water at the periodical “turn-out.” Others cover all shelves with white American cloth, which only needs wiping over with a wet house-flannel; while still others prefer to dispense with the necessity for wetting the shelves and line them with white kitchen paper, or even clean newspaper, which is periodically renewed.

Of the three methods I prefer the last, with the addition of a good scrubbing at the spring clean. The weekly or fortnightly scrubbing is apt to result in permanently damp cupboards, unless they can be left empty to dry for a longer time than is usually convenient. The use of American cloth is perhaps the easiest, most labour-saving method, but the cloth soon gets superficially marked and worn long before its real usefulness is impaired, so that the cupboard shelves never look quite so neat as after scrubbing or relining with white paper.

The larder should be thoroughly “turned out” once a week. Once a fortnight is enough for the store-cupboard and for china cupboards in daily use. While cupboards in which superfluous china and other non-perishable goods are stored, and that are seldom opened, need not be touched oftener than once or twice a year.

In very small houses one cupboard often must house both china and groceries, thus combining the offices of storeroom and china cupboard. The larder, strictly speaking, is for the food consumed daily. But when larder and store-cupboard have to be combined, the groceries may be packed away on the upper shelves, which can be tidied once a fortnight; but the shelves doing duty for the larder proper should never be left for longer than a week.

Nothing betrays the careless housewife like an ill-smelling larder. All food should be examined daily and kept well covered. Hot food should be allowed to cool before storing in the larder. In the summer time special precautions must be taken against flies, all receptacles for food which are minus well-fitting lids being covered with wire-gauze covers or clean butter muslin. If the shelves are lined with paper, care should be taken at the weekly change to examine the wood for stains caused by spilt food that has penetrated through the paper. These should not be just left and covered over, but well washed off. With ordinary carefulness, however, they need not occur.
The Healthy Life, 1913. Vol. V, Nos. 24-28

July 1, 2009 | | Comments Closed