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What do we see when we look closely?
The preparation of multicourse meals, each with numerable dishes, required many hands and skills in an upper class 18th-century kitchen. Different types of foods had to be cleaned or prepared throughout the seasons, and fires constantly stoked and monitored. Examine this kitchen scene from an English cookbook book published in 1785, and see if you can figure out what each person is doing.
Roll over different areas of the kitchen to discover answers to the questions below.
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- Q1What is the worker standing in the left corner doing?
- A1She is washing cooking pots. Cleaning heavy iron cooking pots was labor intensive and essential. A dirty pot could affect the taste and appearance of a dish.
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- Q2What is the seated woman doing?
- A2She is plucking a goose. The basket to her right may hold the plucked goose feathers, which would have been saved and used for bedding. The turtle on the floor may also be awaiting her attention. Recipes using turtles shipped from the West Indies were common in 18th-century English cookbooks.
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- Q3What is the person behind the middle of the table doing?
- A3This person is rolling out pastry dough. Cooks prepared different pastes and dough for many types of savory pies in the 18th century. A finished pie rests at the front of the table.
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- Q4What is the worker with the spoon doing?
- A4She may be coating a baking dish with butter or lard before lining it with pastry dough.
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- Q5What is she doing with the long rod?
- A5She may be putting a trussed fowl or piece of meat on a spit. On the bottom of the hearth, you can see a similar spit with something roasting on it.
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- Q6What is the person standing on the stool near the doorway doing?
- A6This person seems to be turning a spit jack. A spit jack was a mechanical device for turning meat over a fire. To rotate meat a cook turned a hand crank (located above the fire), which activated a series of weights that turned the rod below. You can see the round wheel of the crank above the person's head, and a chain running down to the end of spit on the fire below.
-
- Q1What is the worker standing in the left corner doing?
- A1She is washing cooking pots. Cleaning heavy iron cooking pots was labor intensive and essential. A dirty pot could affect the taste and appearance of a dish.
-
- Q2What is the seated woman doing?
- A2She is plucking a goose. The basket to her right may hold the plucked goose feathers, which would have been saved and used for bedding. The turtle on the floor may also be awaiting her attention. Recipes using turtles shipped from the West Indies were common in 18th-century English cookbooks.
-
- Q3What is the person behind the middle of the table doing?
- A3This person is rolling out pastry dough. Cooks prepared different pastes and dough for many types of savory pies in the 18th century. A finished pie rests at the front of the table.
-
- Q4What is the worker with the spoon doing?
- A4She may be coating a baking dish with butter or lard before lining it with pastry dough.
-
- Q5What is she doing with the long rod?
- A5She may be putting a trussed fowl or piece of meat on a spit. On the bottom of the hearth, you can see a similar spit with something roasting on it.
-
- Q6What is the person standing on the stool near the doorway doing?
- A6This person seems to be turning a spit jack. A spit jack was a mechanical device for turning meat over a fire. To rotate meat a cook turned a hand crank (located above the fire), which activated a series of weights that turned the rod below. You can see the round wheel of the crank above the person's head, and a chain running down to the end of spit on the fire below.
- 1What is the worker standing in the left corner doing?
- 2What is the seated woman doing?
- 3What is the person behind the middle of the table doing?
- 4What is the worker with the spoon doing?
- 5What is she doing with the long rod?
- 6What is the person standing on the stool near the doorway doing?
