Wait for Their Return incorporates a lot of historical facts from the 1830s. To get the details as accurate as possible, I spent a huge amount of time reading and researching. The library has seen a lot of me this past year.
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I also made several trips to Sturbridge Village in order to get a feel for the time period (their reconstruction aims to set them in the year 1840).
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In my novel, a lot of attention is focused on an old kitchen and open hearth cooking. To get a better feel for this experience (library research can only take you so far), I spent an evening in Sturbridge Village participating in their open hearth cooking class.
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I peeled vegetables with an old fashioned knife (appreciation for my peeler grew) and measured ingredients in an entirely new manner (I felt like I was just guessing).
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I helped spit the meat, and watched as the interpreter placed it in a ‘tin kitchen’. You can see this tin kitchen in the photo below – it’s the silver half-cylinder facing the fire. This cooking utensil was a huge leap forward in its time as it allowed the cook to use the reflected heat of the fire to evenly roast a chicken or a cut of meat. We had to remember to turn the spit every ten minutes (no timer) and set the wire into the next notch. Before its invention, many a roast was burned on one side and nearly raw on the other (yuck).
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Frying with hot embers on the fireplace hearth is a whole different experience from using the stovetop – not to mention the level at which you work (the floor). Stay close to the fire too long and you overheat, stand too far away and it can grow rather chilly. You have to remember not to grab the cast iron handles bare-handed and grab them you must. Many rest on small tripod legs and are a bit tipsy. One wrong move and your dinner is on the floor in the ashes.
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As the daylight faded, we had to finish preparing the meal by candlelight. I was glad most of the cutting and chopping was done. We were informed that, by 1840 standards, we were working with an excessive number of candles.
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My favorite part was learning how to use the bake oven. The interpreters had arrived hours before us to prepare the oven. It takes between four and five hours of a lively fire to heat the bricks enough to bake bread. You can see the fire burning in the upper right corner. Many people think that the fire is built in the bottom opening with the bread placed in the upper opening. The lower opening is for collecting all the ashes you generate (those are carefully saved for soap making). When the oven was hot enough, we let the fire die out before carefully shoveling out the coals and sweeping out the interior with a wet broom. Our rolls were then inserted and a cast iron door was set in place.
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After a good three hours of work, we set the table, learned some 1840s manners (eat with your knife, not your fork) and enjoyed the results. It was wonderful! The roast was perfect, the fried vegetables were crispy, the rolls and pie perfect. The meal was easily one of the best I’d ever had.
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So, as I eye our fireplace at home and look online to see if you can still buy a ‘tin kitchen’ (you can), my husband grows nervous. Cast iron pans have entered my home and I would love nothing more than to install a crane (the iron arm that pots hang from) inside the firebox.
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