Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1890-01-31
GOOD OLD FAMILY WAYS.
OLIVER OPTIC TRIES HIS HAND
AT LOOKING BACKWARD.

Old Splits for Roasting Meat-some of
the First Men Who "Blew Out the Gas"
One who has lived long enough to dc
so, in looking back fifty or sixty years,
is greatly astonished at the marvellous
changes in the manner of doing things
in everyday life. Sixty years ago in
Boston anthracite coal was not in COM
mon use, if it was in use at all. In GER
tain sections of the city there were wood
stands, where people from the country,
coming into town with a load of wood,
waited for customers. Tho best Of
hickory brought So cord, which is
about the price of the best wood at the
present day, though that Of inferior
quality was sold at a lower rate. Such
thing as a cook stove was hardly
known, and all the cooking was done
with wood in an open fireplace Biscuit
and loves were baked in a bake kettle,
which had a cover with rim around it,
so that Goals or hot ashes could be put
ON it. In hotels and large private houses
meats and poultry were roasted before
the fire. A smoke jack" was used in
the former and it did its work a great
deal better than any oven can do it,
Roast beef and roast turkey at the pres
ept time are misnomers, as rule, for
they are really baked.
THE SMOKE JACK.
My young friends, and very likely
many of my older ones, do not know
what smoke jack is, and have not
seen one for forty years, though possibly
they are still in use in some large hotels
Its construction is very simple In the
hue of the kitchen chimney a fange
wheel, something like the propeller of a
steamer, is placed so that it will turn
readily. When a smart fire is made the
hot air rushes up the flue and turns the
wheel 1t may have been supposed that
the smoke turned it at a time when
young people did not study physics in
the day school, and this may have been
the origin of the name. The axle of the
wheel projected out through the chimney
wall into the room, about six feet above
the hearth. On the end of the axle was
a drum with four grooves in it over
Long spits, with grooved wheel at
one end, were provided, over which the
chain, eight or nine feet long, fastened
together SO as to form an "endless
chain," passed. An iron stand, to which
four holders were attached, held up the
other end of the spit. Another stand
was placed near the grooved wheel by
which the distance from the fire could
be regulated. The fire was made in a
CRATE not more than six or eight inches
deep, but from one to two feet high.
From one to four spits were used as
needed, and the jack was so geared that
the spits turned very slowly all the time.
Pans were placed under the spits, from
which the cooks did the basting. Roast
ing is better done with this apparatus
than it can be done in an oven, for the
reason that the continued turning of the
spits does not permit the juice of the
meats to run out, as when they are at
rest.
Passing by a certain shop in the Latin
quarter of Paris, used to stop to look
in at the window, for at the back of it
there was a great fire, before which
were several spits on which chickens
were roasting. The windows always
had on display for sale plenty of cold
roast chickens, and they were cooked in
the old fashioned way. The French
seem to believe in the method of former
days, for l saw an ingenious contrivance
for roasting in window in the Avenue
de fOpera. 1t was spit, on which was
a dummy chicken roasting before an
imaginary fire. The bird was kept
turning all the time by an apparatus
composed of springs, which had to be
wound up like clock. But the curious
part of it was the appliance for basting
the chicken. Over the spit was a small
trough with minute holes in the bottom,
through which the basting dropped very
slowly. The trough beneath the spit
was inclined so that the liquid ran down
to one end, where it was taken up by
couple of revolving scoops and emptied
into the trough above the roast. 1t was
an admirable device, and could not fail
to do its work well as long as the ma
ChliclN was htpI III "Olhlu5 OIuSl'
FOUGHT THE COOK STOVE.
The first decided improvement on the
iron bake kettle that 1 remember was
the tin baker" as it was called. 1t was
on the plan of ''tin Kitchen" which
was also largely in use in the old time,
in which the spit was occasionally turned
by crane at the end. The baker was
set before the fire with the biscuit OF
loaf in it. The cover was inclined down
from the fire, so that it would reflect the
heat upon the bread. This and the tin
kitchen did their work very well as long
as open fires were available, but of course
at much greater expense for fuel The
cook stove has nearly superseded all these
appliances, though the old ladies of sixty
years ago fought against it for a time as
a senseless innovation; but they learned
to use it and like it in the end. At first
wood was generally used in it, but when
hard coal came into general use it was
the fuel generally used in cooking. This
coal had a hard struggle to obtain a foot
ing in houses in those days. Ny father
hired a new man from the country and
told him to make fire in the morning
in the CRATE. When we got up there was
no fire. The man had "given it up"
He could make a fire, he said. as well
as anybody out of anything that would
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