One Hundred Years of Cooking
At the time of this writing (June 2020), Madison County is beginning to lift restrictions put in place to contain the spread of novel coronavirus COVID-19. The pandemic caused economies around the world to shut down many in-person services. Some people worked from home, others were furloughed or lost their jobs. People providing or obtaining essential services wore face coverings when they couldn’t maintain a safe “social distance” of six feet from others.
Madison Countians learned to “shelter-in-place”: unable to attend church, visit a park, get a haircut, or eat at a restaurant. Residents who counted themselves fortunate to escape infection or economic hardship nonetheless had to cope with feelings of isolation.
During the crisis, many people learned (or re-learned) how to cook out of necessity, gaining a new appreciation of what it takes to make a meal in the 21st century. But cooking was even harder in the past. This online exhibition showcases a small portion of the cooking-related items held by the Madison County Historical Society (MCHS), focusing on the period circa 1830-1950. The exhibit was written and designed by Mary Z. Rose, Assistant Curator at the Madison County Historical Museum and Archival Library. Please send your feedback and/or any questions about this exhibition to madisoncountyhistoryil@gmail.com.
Early Wooden Cooking Tools
Eleanor Montgomery used this chopping bowl in the mid-nineteenth century. Her husband made it from a linden tree on their farm south of Edwardsville. At that time, people used wood chopping bowls the way we use cutting boards today.
Eleanor Kinder was just shy of her 19th birthday when she married Nelson Montgomery in 1838. They raised seven children together on their farm.
Nelson worked hard and eventually the farm grew to encompass over 500 acres. The St. Louis & Eastern Railroad established Montgomery Station on his property in 1893, two years before Nelson's death. The area around the farm came to be known as Mont Station.
At first glance, this wooden rolling pin might look very similar to a modern version you have used. But your rolling pin probably has a revolving barrel that spins around an axis connecting the handles. This one is made from one solid piece of wood: no moving parts. The revolving barrel feature wasn't commercially available in the United States until 1902.
This rolling pin belonged to Nancy Prickett. Nancy Lamkin married Isaac Prickett in 1821. They lived in Edwardsville, where Isaac and his brother had opened a general store.
Nancy's life was filled with tragedy. Two of her four children died in infancy. When she was about 40 years old, her husband died. She remained in Edwardsville and raised her boys as a single mom. Then she lost another son in 1850.
When she was in her 60s, about five to ten years after this photograph was taken, Nancy married a Bavarian-born farmer 25 years her junior. She came to be known as "Aunt Nancy" to the people of Edwardsville, where she remained until her death in 1883.
Cooking over a Hearth
Cast iron stoves didn't become standard fixtures in the American kitchen until the 1840s. Before that, and in some cases even decades later, people cooked their meals in the fireplace.
The cook of the house started the fire first thing in the morning. The goal was to burn down hardwood logs to get some red hot coals going (versus leaping flames).
Emma Bohm used this kettle on her kitchen hearth. The kettle had three legs. Kettles like this could be set directly on the hearth, because the legs created space under the kettle for air flow to the fire. Alternatively, a handled kettle like this could be hung over the fire.
There were two ways to hang a kettle over a fire. The inside of an early nineteenth-century kitchen fireplace had ledges projecting out from the wall about six feet above the hearth. The cook would hang her pots on a (green) wooden lugpole resting on the ledges. She had to monitor the lugpole and replace it before it dried out and caught fire. A better option for hanging pots was a crane: a large iron bracket attached to the fireplace jamb and cantilevering over the hearth. The crane was hinged at the jamb so the cook could swing the pot forward off the fire to take it down.
Early 19th-century cooks used long-handled cookware to try to keep from burning themselves. The toasting fork below was used to toast slices of bread over the fire, much like campers today roast marshmallows over a campfire. The long handles of the cast iron waffle iron below served the same function of keeping the cook as far as possible from the fire.
Cooking with a Cast Iron Stove
The cast iron coal stove changed everything for the 19th-century cook.
Steps for operating a cast iron coal stove:
Step 1: Dump the ashes — Close the doors supplying draft to the stove and remove the range top. Brush the ashes onto the grate at the bottom of the stove. Replace the range top and dump the grate (wait for the dust to settle before proceeding to Step 2).
Step 2: Stoke the stove — Remove the range top again and put some crumpled up newspaper and kindling onto the grate. Reopen the draft doors and stoke the fire. Replace the range top.
Step 3: Keep the fire going — Monitor the fire and add more coal as needed. (This might need to be done every ten minutes or so.)
The cook had to heat up the whole stovetop/oven compartment apparatus even if she just wanted to make coffee. If she wanted to use the oven, she monitored the temperature by sticking her hand inside. She counted how long it took before her hand got unbearably hot. To cook a roast, she waited for the temperature to reach "20."
On the plus side, the cast iron stove meant that the cook could get closer to the action with much less chance of getting burned, which also made it easier to monitor the food. Short-handled pans replaced the unwieldy long-handled utensils of the past.
All of the cookware items featured on this page belonged to Mary (Smola) Sliva of Collinsville. She married schoolteacher William in 1904. Both of them were children of Bohemian immigrants.
At age 30 with two toddlers at home, Mary earned a diploma from the American College of Dressmaking. The program qualified her to "practice and teach the art and science of fashionable dressmaking."
Mary and William raised five children in Collinsville. The Slivas used the meat grinder and sausage stuffer below to make homemade sausage. Mary probably fried it up in her cast iron skillet and served it with waffles hot from her waffle iron.
Breakfast at the Sliva house must have been amazing.
More Turn-of-the-Century Cookware
Processing Dairy
Baking
Fruitcake
Midcentury Cooking
Home canning
People started canning food at home in the 1880s. Home canning preserved food grown on the family farm for use throughout the year. The popularity of home canning peaked in 1943. After that, home freezers provided an alternative way to preserve food.
Step 1: Pare and slice your summer peaches or fall apples.
Step 2: Pre-cook the fruit, put it into glass jars, and process in a hot water bath.
Step 3: Bake a pie in the middle of winter.
Graniteware
German brothers Frederick and William Niedringhaus immigrated to St. Louis in the 1850s and opened a tinware shop. In 1865, they formed the St. Louis Stamping Company (later the National Enameling & Stamping Company (NESCO)) and opened a factory. The company began producing enameled metal cookware with a speckled surface, known as graniteware, in 1874. The brothers eventually founded the community of Granite City, where they built a stamping and steel works for graniteware production.
Graniteware was a low-cost, lightweight, easy-to-clean cookware option. Its popularity persisted into the 1940s. The down side to all enamelware is that the coating can crack. When that happens, the thin metal underneath sometimes rusts completely through. A company called Mendets sold aluminum plugs expressly for patching holes in enamelware from 1920 through the 1940s.
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