The 19th Century

1800s

HEARTH COOKING helps protect cooks from blisteringly hot fires and embers.

Cooks manage flames, embers and ash as they simultaneously prepare foods in the fireplace, on the hearth and in the oven. Though fireplace design changes little for centuries, some significant alterations take place during the 18th century. The high, wide and straight-sided fireplaces of the past become more compact with angled sides, helping to conserve fuel and radiate heat. Positioning the oven on one side of the fireplace rather than on the back wall means cooks no longer have to lean over a hot fire to get to their oven. And rather than suspending pots over the fire on a lug pole (a pole on which a kettle is hung), cranes allow cooks to readily adjust the heat by swinging the crane and its pot closer to or farther from the fire.

AMERICAN COOKERY BY AMELIA SIMMONS, 1814

The first cookbook written by for Americans appears in 1796. Simmons captures the way cooks are adapting recipes brought with them from England to include ingredients found in the Americas like corn, squash, pumpkins, turkey and cranberries. By 1830, it’s

1850

DRY SINK

Dry sinks or low wooden cupboards provide space for tubs of water, hauled into the kitchen in buckets from an outdoor well. Later, a hand pump — mounted next to a kitchen sink made of iron, soapstone or granite — provides running water.

The cast-iron cookstove is the major technological innovation in the 19thcentury kitchen, in widespread use by the 1850s.

1840-1845

LIBERTY & UNION COOKSTOVE

By concentrating the heat source, castiron stoves are far more fuel efficient than fireplaces. Food preparation is more convenient too — a single fire can be used for a variety of cooking tasks. Plus, less bending and lifting by the cook is required.