Chef Bill Mitchell
 

Thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner got me wondering about 19^th century cooking. Ever wonder how people back then kept their food. Electricity didn’t come around till the 1890s and of course they didn’t have refrigerators. The Industrial Revolution brought many ideas and changes to people’s daily life. How they ate, what they preserved and how they prepared their food changed dramatically. Spices played a large part before this change due to the fact that spices were used not only for flavor but also to hide the smell and taste of rotting food. In history the British Empire was largely built on trade through their vast reach on the high seas. Spices played a very important roll in their shipping commerce. Because of the trade, British and America’s traditional cuisine and culinary habits changed. Spice boxes became a standard item in the kitchen, now you know why Rubbermaid got so big.

But food preservation such as salting, pickling, drying and smoking changed very little. The idea of canning was first developed in the 18^th century with dry soups that were made by reducing stocks or broth to a glue that could be reconstituted. By the 1880’s scientists experimented with chemicals to kill germs and bacteria because of Pasteur’s theories about disease and putrefaction. Although the chemical induction in foods during that time often proved to be fatal to those who ate “preserved” foods, it wasn’t until 1901 the first legislation to control the use of chemicals for preserving foods was developed. History repeats it’s self, if you read one of my articles a couple of months ago I wrote about scientist 30 years ago who came out with a sugar substitute and now we learned that it can cause cancer? We better start reading what producers put in our food.

The first tin can in which preserved foods were packaged came with instructions, “cut around the top outer edge with a chisel or hammer’. Did you laugh at that, I did, but it’s true. Did you ever wonder how much money the person made who came out with the can opener? In the early 19^th century open and closed kitchen ranges were introduced in upper-class houses as well as middle class houses. Over open fires most items were suspended from iron hooks and from a tool called a bottle jack, which had an internal timer, which controlled the height of the cooking pot. Open fires and kitchen ranges were very labor intensive, Coal had to be carried in and the aches later had to be removed.

Baking was very hard because of the difficulty of trying to control the temperature for even cooking. The first gas range was introduced in 1880 first into urban areas and then on a wider scale. Open fire was now used to heat rooms and to provide hot water. Although gas was a much cleaner way of cooking it often imparted an unsavory flavor, but by the 1930's many households had gas ranges that burned cleaner. The change to electric ranges also started in the 1890s but the progress was slow because of electricity’s high cost and general unavailability. Gee, it almost sounds like the 21^st century, like I said history repeats itself. So now that we went back in time for a short read, there’s one thing that really didn’t change, that is people. Only technology, communication, styles, transportation and weaponry did. In today’s world we still can find heroic, brave, honest, and loving people. Now go and do the right thing!

Thanx, Chef Bill. Remember I do private dinner parties, for more information; chefbillmitchell@yahoo.com or 852-2728 and for Chef Bill’s recipe of the week, just e-mail me or call and I’ll be glad to get it to you!

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Thanx, Chef Bill!