# St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 3/Nature and Science/Cooking Customs

Pueblo Cooking Pits.
Two of these have been sealed up to cook the food in them, and the woman is heating the third by stirring up the fire in it through the poke-hole. Her husband has just returned from the field with some corn, and has stopped to see how the fire is progressing.
Cooking Customs Past and Present
The hood is held in place by ropes about a pole. In the foreground is shown a slab for baking cakes, with place for a fire under it. At the back a stone supports a pot holding it above the fire.
Most of their cooking was done out-of-doors in pits dug in the ground, from eighteen to twenty-four inches deep. These were made in rows, or singly, with rims raised about eight inches above the ground. They were covered with stone slabs and sealed with mud during the cooking operation. A hot fire was first made in them, and, when the desired temperature was attained, all the fire and ashes were taken out, a large pot of corn-meal mush was put in, and the pit sealed for several hours, or until the mush was thoroughly cooked.
Later, when they built masonry houses, they had well-made chimneys and fireplaces. One of the illustrations shows a fireplace with a “hood” to carry away the smoke and the fumes from the cooking—a contrivance that few modern houses possess.
Corn was cultivated and acorns were gathered, this latter usually being done by the women, who also did the cooking. Meal was made from the corn or the acorns, and a batter prepared from this meal was baked in thin cakes on a stone slab directly under the fire hood. The temperature of this stone was kept right for cooking by adding ​brush to the fire beneath it, and as both ends were open, the draft was all that could be desired.
These ancient Indians were expert potters, and made vessels in which mush and meats were boiled. The pots were often supported by large stones which held the pot against the wall and above the fire.
Other and later Indian tribes of the far West cooked quite differently, or even, before kettles were to be had, ate some of their food raw. The Hupa Indians of northern California wove water-tight baskets in which they cooked acorn-meal mush by dropping several hot stones into the mixture of water and meal. They also baked on soapstone dishes over glowing wood fires. The Indians who could get fish used to cook them on a “spit” over a fire, or boil them with other food in baskets, as already described.
A Hupa Indian of Northern California.
He is lifting the last of five very hot stones, which he will put into the basket where the others have made the mush boil. The stone is so hot it makes the sticks by which he is lifting it smoke and burn.
An early Indian method of cooking fish.
A drawing of General Washington’s camp gridiron is here shown. It was made from the original in the National Museum, at Washington, where many of the objects described in this article may be seen.
An Eskimo reindeer stew. This is cooked indoors in a large, rectangular, soapstone vessel over a soapstone oil-lamp.
An Indian’s iron pot for boiling meat.
Another method of using a pot or kettle.
A plantation Negro cooking hoe-cake in her cabin.
About six years ago, the “fireless” cooker made ​its appearance. It does not cook without fire, but it does retain the cooking heat. Many models are now obtainable, some in box form with several deep cooking compartments. The accompanying illustration shows one of the round forms. The cast-iron (black) plates seen, one above and another below the cooking vessels, are first heated. When very hot, one or both may be used and radiate their heat in the apparatus. In this cooker, instead of several pads and a tight--
| A settler’s stone fireplace. This shows the crane and, at the right, a “johnny-cake” being cooked by the hot fire as it is spread in a thick dough on a rough board. | |
| A. The early Dutch oven. B. General Washington’s camp gridiron, with sliding handle for convenient packing. | A modern steam cooker on an oil-stove. Note the circular condenser on the top at right. |
| A sectional view of a fireless cooker and its cylindrical cover. Between the heated cast-iron plates, which show black in the drawing, are two cooking pans. | The latest electric cooker. Upon this two eggs have just been poached and the pan lifted to show the heating wires. Another cooking pan is underneath. |
The inner sides of these cookers are packed with mineral wool—asbestos. In some of them, no heating-plates are used, but the food to be cooked is allowed to boil for a few minutes, and then, set into the cooker and tightly covered, the cooking process continues, until the food is ready for the table. A “home-made” fireless cooker was exhibited recently at the International Hygienic Congress at Washington. It was made by placing a large pail in a box of tightly packed hay, and is said to have cost only one dollar.
Our street-cars have for some time been heated by electricity. Electric cookers are still more modern, but we have electric toasters, griddles, ovens and ranges of various shapes and sizes, up to large cabinet affairs with heat indicators and clocks by which the cooking may be regulated. The principle used in the cooking apparatus is the same as that used in the car. The current from large wires is fed to smaller wires which offer a sudden resistance, and the heat thus produced soon becomes intense.
Harry B. Bradford.