Historic Deerfield Trip

[helwen]

mizpagan, me, Patricia, Brigit, and Halfdan all went to Historic Deerfield to see the open hearth cooking demo. We ended up seeing it a few times during the day, and seeing some other places as well, like the Silver House (with an amazing silver wares collection, including some of the silly ways people competed to show off their wealth to their fellow, like the silver nutmeg grinder), the Stebbins house (very nice Federal-style home), and the Wells-Thorne(?) house, in which you went from one time period to the next, as you passed from room to room. Interesting how the window treatments changed, depending on cost, trade issues with England, and ability to produce things locally. Also, I liked the windows that were deep-set so there was a place to sit or put something on, with the shutters folding into the sides of the casement -- same room also had a couple of little drawers set into the wall between two of the windows -- Halfdan spotted that. Very nifty. I'd thought at one time that some shallow shelving and such would be handy in a house that has thick, well-insulated walls -- neat to see someone actually did it.

At the open hearth demo kitchen -- lovely room, with a swing-arm in the hearth, and a kettle for hot water that had a handle off the top-front of it for tipping it forward to pour into a ladle or bowl, so that you don't have to lift the heavy cast-iron kettle off the hook. Eileen, the cook, was using red ware dishes and also some wood bowls and such for her containers. The wood ones for holding the various food stuffs that were going to be cooked that day. No bread baking, although apparently Saturday was the traditional day of the week for that. She was saying it was going to be warm today so she was pretending she'd done it the day before. It _was_ a bit warm, but I suspect having to work alone today may have been a factor as well. Still, she was absolutely wonderful, and did make rhubarb sauce, veal stew (what would be in season), and a salad. We didn't actually get to see the salad with all our comings and goings, but the other two were lovely to see and smell.

We learned a lot of things, such as the cook has to get up very early in the morning to start the fire, in order to start making coals for the day's cooking. People often ate a light breakfast of whatever from the day before, then went out to work, perhaps coming in later in the morning for a more substantial meal. Then a solid lunch/dinner, perhaps tea in the afternoon, and a light supper in the evening.

It's one thing though to learn that even the frying pans have legs, or that redware can be put into the warm coals and ash to one side of the fire where the fresher red-hot coals are being made, and another to actually see it being done. At one point earlier in the day she was just warming a pot up a bit before adding more ingredients, so it was sitting on the hearthstones, near the fire but not in it, and then later it was fully in the pile of warm coals and ash for longer cooking.

The village's cooks also learned about cocoa in the 18th c earlier this year -- how it was processed to the south of us, and about buying blocks of it already prepared from Baker's in Boston. Part of a grant program promoted and provided for by Mars (the candy company, not the planet).

Cocoa was one of the drinks of choice after the tea party...

They had a lovely little kitchen garden there too, that we enjoyed. There are many, many buildings at Historic Deerfield, and of course the museum where most of the collections are kept, but one can only see so many things in one day, especially if you'd like to see them in more than a hit-and-run fashion. An excellent day!