Chats on Household Curios

by Fred. W. Burgess

It is in the kitchen and the pantry that domestic economy centres. The very essence of home life is found in the preparation of suitable food in which to satisfy human appetites. Whether the kitchen is furnished with apparatus sufficient to cook for the inmates of a large institution, or with the more modest appliances with which a chop or a steak can be grilled or a small joint roasted in a gas oven, the basis of cooking operations is the same, and the cook requires an outfit of culinary utensils small or large, according to what she has been accustomed to use or considers necessary for her immediate wants. In olden time the kitchen was furnished with fewer accessories in proportion to the meat consumed than at the present time, and the large hanging caldron and the strong and heavy wrought or cast iron saucepan on the fire, and the roasting spit and jack in front of it, went a long way towards completing the outfit. The gradual advance and increase in the furnishings of the kitchen have been the outcome of development and progress in culinary art. Since the introduction of scientific cooking and the establishment of schools of cookery, the hired cook and the mistress who dons the apron and assumes the role of the economic housewife have learned to appreciate the use of modern culinary appliances, lighter in weight and convenient to handle. These differ according to the purposes for which they are to be used.

Hygienic conditions now regarded as essential have displaced many of the older cooking pots which have been condemned as injurious to health. Greater knowledge of the chemistry of cooking, and of the action of acids upon metals, has enabled the scientific cook to differentiate between the pots and pans to use according to the various foods prepared. The beautifully finished light, handy, and convenient porcelain-enamelled saucepans and stewpans and aluminium cooking pots used on modern gas stoves and ranges, would have been just as unsuitable on the open fires of the older grates as what are now regarded as the curios of the kitchen would be deemed to be in modern culinary operations. In almost every house there are to be found obsolete utensils, some of which are valued on account of their great age, others because of their unusual forms, and some because of the beauty of workmanship and the costly materials of which they have been made. It is when turning out the kitchen and storeroom on the occasion of periodical cleanings that these old-world pots and pans come to light; at such times the collector may be able to secure scarce specimens and rescue them from oblivion.

FIG. 42.—MECHANICAL ROASTING JACKS.
(In the collection of Mr. Charles Wayte.)

It is not always easy to realize what the old kitchen was like when these vessels were in use, although in out-of-the-way places kitchens may occasionally be discovered in which but little change has been made. This is especially so in some of the Welsh villages, and in order that visitors may see what such kitchens are like a Welsh cottage fireplace showing the objects which might commonly have been found there a century ago has been reconstructed in the National Museum of Wales. This we are able to reproduce in Fig. [41] by the courtesy of the Director. The grate came from Llansantffraid, and was made by a local blacksmith; the spit and its bearers came from Glamorgan; the brass pot came from Barry, and the dog wheel (referred to on p. [130]) from Haverfordwest; most of the minor accessories came from different parts of North Wales.

The Kitchen Grate.

The kitchen grate has evolved from the open fire; at first in the centre of the room, then removed for convenience to the side or end in front of which joints of meats were roasted on a spit in olden time. The spit, at first quite primitive, was improved upon by local smiths, until quite intricate arrangements provided the desired revolutions, and turned the meat round and round until it was properly cooked. In the thirteenth century the "bellows blower" was an officer in the Royal kitchen, his duty being to see that the soup on the fire was neither burnt nor smoked. In course of time the bellows blower in lesser households became a useful kitchen boy, turning the spit by hand. It would seem, however, as if in quite early days efforts were made to economize labour in the kitchen, and turn the spit by mechanical contrivances.

In roasting meat sliding prongs held the joint in place, a cage or basket being used for roasting poultry. This contrivance, first turned by hand, was afterwards accelerated and made more regular by the mechanical contrivances just referred to. These appear to have been of three different types. There was the clock jack, two splendid specimens of which are illustrated in Fig. [42], types becoming exceedingly rare. Those illustrated were recently in the possession of Mr. Charles Wayte, of Edenbridge, an enthusiastic discoverer of antiquarian metal work in out-of-the-way places in Sussex and Kent. Earlier still there was the smoke jack or rotary fan fixed in the chimney, operated by an up-draught, pulleys and cords being attached to the end of the spit. The third method referred to involved the shifting of manual labour from man to his domestic beast, for the faithful hound was pressed into the service of the cook. The dog worked in a cage, operating a wheel or drum which in its turn revolved the turnspit. Such turnspits seem to have had a lingering existence, and were occasionally heard of in North Wales late in the nineteenth century.