Episode 40 - 17th Century Fast Food

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Listen to "040 17th Century Fast Food" on Spreaker.

 Link to the Episode:

Without cars, there were no drive throughs.  But there was fast food, or at least food you could pick up and eat on the go.

There was actually a thriving fast food - or food vendor economy in the big cities of the world in the 17th century... going all the way back to antiquity.  Any city that started to pack people in little rooms in wooden buildings soon found it was a terrible idea to let people have fires in their rooms.  Especially in the days before a fireplace with a chimney.  And even in the early days, the chimneys could be problems in themselves.

So a few of the items I mention in this episode:

A Wattle & Daub Chimney - this one is likely late 19th Century.
Note that the chimney is leaning away from the house - and the stick propping up the chimney.  When it inevitably caught on fire, the stick could be pulled out, causing the burning chimney to fall away from the house.

From the Digital Library of Appalachia

Excavated Taverna Hot Line from Pompeii 

From Ars Technica - Ancient Fast Food

Ancient Greek clay stove - Roman Period, 2nd-1st century BCE
on display at the Archaeological Museum of Delos


Drying pumpkin by the fire:
From Fireside Feasts - January 2012
by Carolina Capehart - who was working at the 
The Israel Crane House in Montclair, NJ


Related Media:

A great documentary about how you could die horribly in Tudor England and beyond.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSyjyLAWWM


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