Colonial Kitchen Hearth

Pay attention while in the colonial kitchen to the once familiar scents of herbs drying, a suet pudding bubbling on the hearth, ducks roasting, and maybe even the less alluring aroma of milk souring into cheese and the continual process of drying out baby flannel. Yes, this is the kitchen of colonial America. Colonial homes often featured multiple hearths for cooking, heating, and lighting needs.

In warmer months, summer kitchens. The Hearth Was Everything The fireplace dominated the kitchen. It wasn't just for warmth.

It was the stove, oven, grill, and sometimes dryer-all in one. Cooks used iron pots over embers, turned meat on spits, and baked bread in Dutch ovens placed right next to the flames. Some fireplaces even had crane arms to swing pots in and out of the heat.

Every meal meant managing firewood, embers. If you long for a kitchen that exudes warmth and craftsmanship, consider a Colonial-inspired kitchen. Colonial style refers to the houses of the American colonies, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In these homes, kitchens were simple and hardworking. "Cooking centered around a large wood-fired hearth and a long, sturdy table often filled the center of the room," says Kimberly. Most colonial kitchens give out a heavy look and the hearth style outgrowth above the stove adds to its massiveness.

Having a lot of delicate details and carving is an element that is highlighted a lot in the colonial style kitchen. It was more common in colonial times to build several small fires in the fireplace for cooking rather than a single large fire, much in the same way we use adjustable settings on our ranges for boiling or simmering foods today. For cooking at lower temperatures small piles of live embers were raked onto the hearth at the front of the fireplace.

These were used for broiling on a gridiron. The kitchen hearth in the Henry Whitfield Museum in Guilford, Connecticut, is a good example of an early colonial hearth with its large apron and a lug pole for hanging pots over the coals. Nancy and Julia discuss the structure and evolution of kitchens using the Wentworth house as an example.

The ten foot wide hearth, with its iron pots and utensils, and large brick bake oven, was more than ample for the early homeowner's needs. Needless to say, the huge old hearth is not for cooking anymore. We've long since forgotten how to cook over the open fire, or how long to keep an arm in the oven to gauge temperature.

On the colonial times note, if you visit Colonial Willamsburg you will notice that the cooking took place in a building behind the main house. And that the slaves lived in the quarters above the kitchen.