Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1880-05-21
The Ancient Kitchen and Ours.

kitchens, we can hardly conjecture what
the expression of their amazement would
be, And the idea turning itself over in
the mind, it is to be conjectured in turn
whether we are half grateful enough for
the difference between our estate and
theirs in respect TO the modern kitchen
and its comforts; that is, those of us who
either from choice or necessity do our own
cooking.
Our grandmothers hung hotly and la
boriously over an open fire-that open
fire, which, it has been said, burned
their faces to leather, while their backs
were freezing. Everything that they
cooked was done in the strength of that
cruel blaze, to light which they never
dreamed of our easy luxurious matches,
but scraped away with flints and tinder
on the rare occasions when it was suffer-
ed to go out. A crane, few pot-hooks
and trammels, and some iron kettles and
brass-lined and copper-lined ones, requir-
ing an indefinite amount of securing, to-
gether with tin kitchen, were nearly all
the implements they had, except a spit
and some skewers and a skinner, long
spoon, trevet, and jack.
Now, in our own days, the shining
range, keeping its flames well sheltered,
with all its griddle-hole, its hot and
warm boxes, and its countless number of
tools, invites rather than repels effort.
Here is the oven, ready for the pan or
the plate: then the great fire was to be
| built in the arched hollow of the CHM
ney, the bricks were to be heated red hot,
! fire and ashes were to be drawn out, and
after all that trouble, plate and pan
could not go in till the person attending
to it could hold hand in it first and
count twenty. For the rest, the number
and usefulness of the implements accom-
panying to-dsy's cookery almost rival
the machinery of necromancy. Look at
the mere array of saucepans in which the
modern cook rejoices, and with reason !;
no securing of verdigris from poisonous
brass and copper in her work, but the
simple rinsing and wiping of porcelain
and the thing is ready for future use; :;
and these saucepans, meanwhile, fur
nished at prices that allow dozen where
there could have been but one of brass
or copper. Look at your folding grid
iron, and the place in the range where
/ it can be inserted and used, and not al
low breath of smoke to escape into the
room; at your oyster your flesh
forks; your larding-needles; your inesti-
mable and wonderful spoons with perfor-
ations and with grooves, and what not {;
your bainS-naGrie to hinder things from
catching at the bottom; look at your
pie crimpers, and your pie-lifters that
save so many scald and burn; your
convenient pudding boilers, where the
great-grandmother used piece of cloth
tied at the top with a string; your cool,
marble board for rolling out crust; your
handy biscuit-cutter, where she used the
top of mug or tumbler; look at your
flour-scoop that is at the same time a
sieve; your star toaster; your vegetable
graters and cold-slaw cutters: your
steamer; your gravy-stralner that makes
the way easy, where she had to smooth
and stir, and jam, and worry by main eff
fort in order to insure no Jumps; your
various enchanted egg-beaters, where
she had an old two -pronged steel fork OF
a spoon. Look, too, at your little tin
soap-shaker; at your dish-cloth of woven
steel rings that takes the burned and
blackening crust from all it scrapes
across; at your dish-pan, with its COM
partments for dishes in the various
stages of cleansing; at your silver-soap
at your milk-pail, with the strainer at its
edge; at your refrigerator, where she
had to plunge her bucket with its con
tents in the well, or trust it to the posi-
BILE melting and souring of the cellar
shelf. Reflect then too, on your carpet
sweeper, which, if it is useless on bar,
floor or ingram carpet, works wonder
on all but the corners and edges of Brus
sells carpets, with the superior resistanc,
of the fabric, and that spares you man,
an aching back, while she plodded he
hard way with brush of bristles or
broom of birch shavings; on your feathe
duster, compelling the tops of doors an,
windows and picture-frames to surrende
their accumulations; on your swingin
lamp above the range, with its broa
and glorious blaze of kerosene, if it b
not gas burner, and contrast that wit
her miserable tallow dip which she ra
herself, which she was constantly snui
| fing, and of which she was usually spar
} ing; think of your patent wringer; {
5 your set tubs, if you are city resident
of your easy kitchen pump, if you are
/ country one-where she had recourse t
Y well-sweep or windlass out-of-doors
f! in fine, of all the thousand and one helr
S of housework made easy.
Perhaps the tools in the day of tn;
S great-grandmother were as well suite
7 to the custom of the open fire as it po
J. sible they should be, with the three les
|, of the skillet lifting little way fro
too fervent heat, and supporting it ov,
e Goals, with the "bake-kettle," or DutC
|! oven, as it was often called. But Il
+" difference between their convenience az
It the convenience of the customs to whiC
81 they belonged and that of the model
l. era is not to be easily reckoned. If '
made any proper acknowledgment