The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1864-04-22
. THE LOST FASHIONS OF
HOUSEKEEPING.

Housekeeping Is not modern in
stitution. Eve, without kitchen
range on a Celtic house-maid, dressed
pottage for our primal ancestor, and
he did eat In the far off oldon time
housekeeping afforded only the actu-
al necessity of life. If any of us had
sat at meat with Cromwell or Henry
VIII, we should have got from wood
en- trenches, ill-coolled taurus, a coarse
and unleavencd cake and Il gourd of
whey or beer, for our dinner. The
range of housekeeping among the
land holders of the British Isles III
those times, was not extensive. They
had no chimnies, but "did build their
fires ON We hearthstone in the centre
Of the room, or against We reredos, the
smoke escaping through the chimney
as best it might.
In the old legends we read of the
rafters ringing with the mirth below
them, and it was no myth, for over
head the roof was the only ceiling be-
tween the jewellers and the sky In
this upper region was the domestic
store-house; there they hung their
beef and yenison, and needed no 9TH
er "smoke-house." Nights they slept
on straw beds, or on the scented heath
er, and the poorer classes when sick
had good romde log for Il pilloe +"
Not having the potato, they "did eat
so much peason and oates rs is abusi-
on to thinke of. The daily allow
ance to the maids of honor at the
court Of King Hal, was fa9on of
beer and a chine of beef for breakfast,
beer and beef for dinner, broth,
beer, and beef for supper. Bohea
and Java We're not much III use ut that
time.
In later years chimnies were intro
duced, and fifty years ago our own
fathers sat before the fireplaces that
would take in wood "slsd length"
Thanking the fireplace and its huge
brass-mounted and-irons, was the ca
pacious brick oven, famous for its cui-
sine achievements, which being heated
twice week, would produce such a
bake as stove-ovens know not Of If
our mothers needed to bake n single
loaf, they swept the embers from the
great hot, hearth-put it thereon
covered it with an inverted pot, and
the pot with the glowing embers. In
the Western States, within five years,
we have eaten corn-dodgers baked in
the same way. Then came the old tin
bake-oyen, and the revolving spit
wherein to impale poultry. These in
their turn disappeared, and with them
most OF the tire-places and brick ovens
There has been no greater invention on
earth, III small way, than the lucifer
match Forty years ago our house
keepers had to be vigilant and not
let their fires 90 out, in which case
they had to borrow it from their neigh
bors, or if neighbors were scarce they
had to pull out their Undertook. This
consisted of a steel, flint, and a bit
of prepared tow or charred linen. Pro-
ducing fire thus, ON cold morning,
with the thermometer "way down, was
not pleasant, so the backlog was usually
covered up with ashes at night, and a
bed of glowing Goals on hand in the
morning.
The table furniture Of our ancos-
tors was plain enough They used
wooden plates, with perhaps a heavy
earthen dish in the middle Of the ia
bio, for the food From this they
helped themselves with a wooden or
horn spoon, and sometimes they each
took a spoon and eat from it in com
mon-no other distribution of food
being attempted After the wooden,
came pewter dishes. Many n yonera-
bic housewife will tell you this day,
how her dresser on "bofat' used to
shine with that pewter 1T was the
housokeepcr's pride her household
god Now and then a pewter plate
may yet be found in some Of our old
families, it being usually used by the
small children, being less fragile than
crockery
The old fashioned fre-places afford
ed light enough for the household, but
on special occasions Il pIne-knot, or a
basin filled with oil with floating wick,
were introduced. Brittania lamps soon