Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1913-10-16
Sherdsown Jefferson County, Thursday October 6 1913
Cooking without Stoves Or Kettles.

Cooking Without Stoves Or Kettles.
One of the ways in which men of sci
ence have got information about the way
that people lived in England thousands of
years ago, is by finding and examining
their camping places. Sometimes they
find these places accidentally, but often
low mound by spring, or discolored
patch in plowed field, will catch the
eye of the experienced relic-hunter. II
he digs down few inches or feet, he
will uncover circle or layer OF stones
that show the marks OF fire; usually there
will be bits of charcoal among them, for
charcoal is one OF the most indestructible
OF substances.
Here was the cooking place, the home
hearth OF family Of small, dark-skinned
wild men and women, who lived there
thousands of years ago, long before the
Phenicians visited Britain to gather grains
of tin from the river-beds of Cornwall.
They had no tools or weapons OF metal,
for they did not know how to smelt ores
of iron or copper, much less how TO forge
these metals into spades or knives or
spears. They made their implements
and tools of wood or stone, bone or
she'll; they caught their game and fish
in pitfalls or by nets and traps, and they
defended themselves with flint-pointed
spears. They lived in caves or under the
shelter of ledges of rock, or they built
brush huts beside the streams and springs
on whose banks we find these rude
hesrths To-day.
How, then, did they cook, without pots
and kettles, or even dishes and crooks
that would stand fire ?-for they made no
pottery. We can guess by what we know
OF the almost equally primitive folk who
live in wild parts of the world to-day, or
of whom early explorers have told us.
Probably they roasted or broiled chunks
Of meat and large fishes over bed OF
Goals. Some Australian blacks cook meat
by laying it on hot stones or on rough
grill of green sticks laid across the glow
ing embers. WoodSmen have learned
from the savages 10 cover bird or fish
with wet clay, and bury il under a fire.
After time they dig il out, and when
they pull off the half-burned clay, the
feathers or scales and the skin come away
with if, and leave clean and well-cooked
meal.
As for the difficulty OF boiling without
pots, a good many tribes, among them
our own ASsiniboins, boil their food by
putting red-hot stones in "pots" made OF
rawhide or OF bark. The Indians Of the
Pacific coast use their water-tight bas-
kets for this purpose, and have long
handled spoon-like implements for lifting
the heated boulders out of the fire.
In the tropics, where bamboos grow,
the natives take hollow section Of bam-
boo, put ii in water and the food to be
cooked, plug up the ends OF the tube, and
set il near the fire until the water gets
steaming hot. We may suppose our
forefathers OF the stone age cooked their
meat and roots in such ways as these, as
they gathered hungrily round these rude
fireplaces in the evenings so long ago ;
and we feel the more sure of it, because
beside some hearths we have found the
remains of wooden troughs, in which
they may have boiled water with the aid
of heated stones.