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Local Roots Menu Preview Evening DiningApril 14, 2014Be one of the first guests to try the brand-new spring Eagle Tavern menu. Local Roots Spring Evening DiningMay 2, 2014Come see how the French have influenced Michigan’s cuisine. |
Click on an artifact below to see how the foods we ate and the ways we prepared them have changed over the last three centuries.
About 1853
Cookstove
United States
95.0.33.1
The cast iron cookstove--now considered old-fashioned and nostalgic--was a radical piece of technology when it entered American kitchens during the mid-1800s.
Cookstoves brought advantages over fireplace cooking. They were less expensive to operate, since they used far less fuel. They were safer than fireplaces with their open flames. Once mastered--for they required learning different cooking techniques than those used in fireplace cooking--cookstoves were more convenient to use, too. For example, baking took a lot less time, since cookstove ovens heated up faster than brick fireplace ovens. Cookstoves also changed the way women prepared meals. Meats were fried rather than broiled, or baked in ovens rather than roasted over an open fire. And--since cookstoves made it easier to cook several dishes at the same time--meals grew more varied than the one-pot meals common in the open hearth cooking era. On early cookstoves like this one, manufacturers placed stove burners low so that housewives did not have to lift heavy iron cookware so high. Placing the oven in a higher position at the back of the stove reduced the need for stooping. |
