Baking on a Victorian Stove.
Lessons in Cookery.
Just stumbled across Lessons in Cookery. The book has a unique layout because it is written not for the average home cook, but for a home economics teacher who may be teaching a class of young students.
The fascinating part about the book’s layout is that it offers a unique look at the small details of cooking in a Victorian kitchen during the 1880s. In the excerpt below, Lesson 2 focuses entirely on how to bake with a wood-fueled stove, to include judging temperature, as well as its general care and keeping.
The excerpt discusses dampers, air flow, smoke control, and coals. Technical details that have generally been all but lost to time with today’s modern ranges. Admittedly, dampers are something of scientific mystery to me. If you haven’t already seen it, the documentary A Toast to Fannie Farmer demonstrates exactly how challenging it can be to skillfully operate one of these wood ovens (our family would certainly be left eating cereal.).
Lesson 2.
I will never complain about cleaning my oven ever again. Ever. Ever. Ever.
Source: Lessons in Cookery, 1889.
My maternal grandparents lived in the house where she was born. I remember her cooking, baking, and heating water in the stove’s reservoir until the late 60’s when she got a LP stove.
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Wow! I can’t even imagine the physical labor involved in cooking on an old wood stove. Just feeding it would have been a nightmare. I wonder what she thought the first time she cooked on the LP?
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Remarkable!
Love the young ladies in their fine while muslin dresses!
That one at the end we can see, I wonder what she is thinking. Love these peek-a-boos of time history.
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🙂 Easy to romanticise these smalls glimpses of the past. It would have been the beginning or rationing. I wonder if the teacher would have addressed that at all?
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In our last house, I had a wood-burning kitchen stove, complete with six burners, water reservoir, and warming shelf. I absolutely loved cooking on it! The thing with a wood stove is that, once stoked, there is always a burner, or spot on the stove top that is exactly the right temperature for whatever you need. It takes time to get used to, but cooks beautifully. I miss it like crazy––except in the summer, I don’t miss it then!
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That sounds intimidating, but efficient. Heat it up, and everything works! Oh man, I’m spoiled-turn a nob, and done! There’s a reason cold dishes are popular in the summer months, no?
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Interesting post.
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