Cooking In An 1860s Kitchen

My husband has a new job as a director for a historic site. I’m loving it because I get to volunteer and this May 21st I am cooking dinner for all the re-enactors and docents at our event. The exciting part is that I am cooking in a 150 year old cabin on the fire place.

I’ve been making candles out there for the past two weeks and getting familiar with the kitchen.

I think there will be around 20-25 folks eating that day. I’ve cooked for many more folks at one time, so this isn’t difficult. And it is so nice to have a whole period kitchen and dining room to myself, I’m practically giddy with excitement.

I’ll be bringing a lot of my own equipment with me including dinner ware but there are already a few important things there we’ll use like flatware, tables and chairs. And most of all the furnishings are period to the 1860s.

This picture is the kitchen and the table where I’ll be working. OK, so not everything in the house is period right now, they’re working on getting it up to that standard. I started by taking those pretty blue ball jars off the table and stuffing them in a cabinet.

The menu for the meal is :

Fermented cucumbers and sauerkraut. These are my old standby, I make them regularly for us. I use whey from my homemade yogurt, sea salt and water. In the cucumber pickles I add dill and garlic and sometimes some red pepper.

Wild salad consisting of what I can gather. Usually this time of year I find mint, chickweed, violets, lamb’s quarters, wild onion and sometimes muscadine grapes. I’ll make a dressing from oil and vinegar and if my Romaine lettuce is growing I’ll include that. Romaine has been grown here for a very long time!

Bread baked in a dutch oven. I might decide to just bake biscuits in the dutch oven, but if I am pressed for time I’ll bake bread the night before.

Fresh butter and homemade preserves.

Mashed potatoes. I was thinking of boiling potatoes and making a dressing which is cooked and much like our modern potato salad, but with the other items I’m making I think mashed will be welcomed.

Roasted chicken. I’ll truss it up and roast it on the string over coals. It will take about 5 hours to cook so I will start it very early in the morning, which means the fire has to be going even earlier.

Venison and gravy. This is made very similarly to liver and onions where you soak the meat in buttermilk overnight, heat oil, fry onions, then lightly dredge the meat in flour and fry it, then add some water and simmer, then make a gravy and let it simmer til tender.

Egg Noodles in Chicken Gravy. This is a very familiar dish to most folks and it’s very old. I make a gravy using the drippings from the roast chicken and some extra broth. Then I add bits of cooked chicken in the gravy and some sliced boiled eggs. Then I add the noodles which are homemade and quite robust, to the the broth to cook. It usually doesn’t need thickening but you can if you want. This recipe kind of sounds like chicken and dumplings to me but the noodles are different.

All that gravy is why I’m thinking mashed potatoes might be better than potato salad.

Apple Deep Dish Pie. This is sort of a Brown Betty dessert but made with one crust on top after the apples, spices and crumbles are added to the dish. It has butter, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and the crumbles are oats and butter. There is a little lemon juice in it too. I’ll serve fresh cream on the side.

Tea Cakes. A very old recipe that everyone seems to like. They’re great with coffee and tea. I will make about 3 dozen of these.

I’ll have cold water and hot tea to drink.

I’ll be serving dinner in shifts and washing dishes between meals. Maybe I can find a kitchen helper! If not, I’ll work it out. No one is rushed and hurried at these events. It reminds me of how life was many years ago.

In the picture below, you can see my dish and hand washing station to the left. That enamel ware pan isn’t quite period to 1865 so I am hoping to replace it with a tin pan. the kitchen is to the left and the dining room is to the right.

I am so looking forward to this event and seeing my reenacting friends. Cooking for them is how I say I love you and appreciate you.