A wig for the cook - 1776

BETTY the COOK MAIDS HEAD DREST is a satirical image from London in 1776.   Her exaggerated wig contains some cooking tools, cheese, vegetables, animals and a cooking fire in a grate.  Closeup of each with sketches from other period images...

On top of her wig is a fireplace and kitchen grate which held coal. The spit over a drip pan was connected to a smoke jack in the chimney by the chain on the left. As smoke from the fire rotated the fan, the gears would move the chain and thus rotate the spit.  The second sketch of a grate shows the cook basting the joint of meat on the spit from the drip pan. Blog post on smoke jack and drip pans HERE

Fireplace and cooking tools - gridiron, long handled pan and a trivet.

 

Gridirons

Pan with long handle

Trivet with 3 legs

A round of cheese with mice in the cutout

Vegetables

Caption:

The taste at present all may see,

but none can tell what is to be.

Who knows when Fashion's whims are spread,

but each may wear this kitchen head.

The noddle that so vastly swells,

may wear a fools cap hung with bells.

The Betty image is from the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. HERE   Images from an interesting past exhibit at the Library - Preposterous Headdresses and Feathered Ladies: Hair, Wigs, Barbers, and Hairdressers

©2014 Patricia Bixler Reber

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