Episode 40 - 17th Century Fast Food

-
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


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie

-
Listen to "065 Cream & Pudding & Cake that is Not a Lie" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode:  Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie 18th Century, pre-revolutionary cake was generally a heavy dense thing compared to our modern, airy baking powder assisted cakes.  The only leavening was yeast and eggs.  And sugar?  Expensive.  Cakes were definitely less sweet.  If you were not wealthy, or it wasn't a wedding, birth or a death,  molasses and maple syrup (more generally known as "maple molasses" in the 18th century) would stand in.  And these too would tend to make your cake more dense as well. It was also common for cakes to be only slightly sweetened and then studded with dried or sugared fruit - think fruit cake.  Either the dense bricky stuff of English descent - or the new Italian star of the modern American winter holiday scene, panettone 18th century cake American cakes were largely thick, moist things that wer...
Read more

Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money

-
Image
Listen to "064 Milk & Butter Money" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode: Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money The Dairy Maid arrives on the scene.  Unlike so many depictions of this or that type of colonial person or other, which tend to be overly idealized depictions, the representation of Dairy Maids is not too far off. She's going to be seen in a colonial dress (don't forget the cap or head wrap), and apron and carrying pails, hanging out with cows, or seated at a churn.  The main place they miss is giving her slim forearms and shoulders.  Between the milking,  the carrying and the churning, she would be a first pick for any arm-wrestling team.   Colonial Williamsburg did lots of the heavy lifting for me - and has excellent photographs of 18th century dairymaid dress , and the dairy out buildings - as well as longer explanations of how they functioned. Dairy House in Colonial Williamsburg Long eaves and slats - but no windows.  And a stone foundation...
Read more