Post by spence on Oct 21, 2019 19:26:37 GMT -7
Quite a few years ago my wife and I signed up for a class in down hearth cooking at a local historic site. It was something I had always wanted to do, and it was better than I hoped.
The equipment was basic, a large cast iron kettle with a bail for hanging, two cast iron dutch ovens, one larger than the other, and a couple of large coffee pots.
The fireplace was of brick with an extended hearth of firebricks. There was a heavy-duty crane bracketed to the fireplace wall.
We cooked beef stew in the kettle, suspended over the fire on the crane. I found that to be an amazingly efficient arrangement. The crane pivoted on its bracket, so you could swing the pot away from or toward you. The kettle was suspended from the crane by ‘S’ hooks, and you could adjust the number of hooks to raise or lower the kettle. Kettle and ‘S’ hooks could also be slid right-left. All that meant it was a cinch to position the kettle exactly where it needed to be during the successive phases of cooking the stew, first browning the meat at high temperature, then slow boiling the stew for a couple of hours.
Using the two dutch ovens we cooked buttermilk biscuits, an apple pie (pandowdy) and applesauce cake. It was easy and efficient to do, and It was all delicious.
I have always wondered how difficult it was to prepare food in all its variety on the “primitive” equipment available to the old folks, and I’m not really surprised at how well the system functioned.
Take it from me, food cooked over an open fire and on a hearth tastes better than when not. Honest.
I've done a lot of cooking in my life, but I never did any I enjoyed more.
Spence
The equipment was basic, a large cast iron kettle with a bail for hanging, two cast iron dutch ovens, one larger than the other, and a couple of large coffee pots.
The fireplace was of brick with an extended hearth of firebricks. There was a heavy-duty crane bracketed to the fireplace wall.
We cooked beef stew in the kettle, suspended over the fire on the crane. I found that to be an amazingly efficient arrangement. The crane pivoted on its bracket, so you could swing the pot away from or toward you. The kettle was suspended from the crane by ‘S’ hooks, and you could adjust the number of hooks to raise or lower the kettle. Kettle and ‘S’ hooks could also be slid right-left. All that meant it was a cinch to position the kettle exactly where it needed to be during the successive phases of cooking the stew, first browning the meat at high temperature, then slow boiling the stew for a couple of hours.
Using the two dutch ovens we cooked buttermilk biscuits, an apple pie (pandowdy) and applesauce cake. It was easy and efficient to do, and It was all delicious.
I have always wondered how difficult it was to prepare food in all its variety on the “primitive” equipment available to the old folks, and I’m not really surprised at how well the system functioned.
Take it from me, food cooked over an open fire and on a hearth tastes better than when not. Honest.
I've done a lot of cooking in my life, but I never did any I enjoyed more.
Spence
