Sunday, August 28, 2022

Well pump or bucket

This 1865 article described the modern options to get water from a small well.
September talks are now up, and the first week's talks are below. As usual, there are some interesting talks this month, including a Medieval Feast Symposium.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Barn-door Fowl and Dunghill Fowl - Chickens

There were many breeds of chickens but the 'plain' common ones around the farm were termed Dunghill fowl (Markham 1614) and Barn door fowl.
A concise, clever description and the image is from 1900. Recipe from 1829 and other excerpts, below.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Articles found in a Kitchen Drawer 1824

Like now, a variety of useful and useless items were tossed into drawers of the kichen table and dresser, making them "untidy hidingplaces." "A grater and nutmeg— the key of the jack" to "a pen without ink" and a "lump of old suet" were items from the 1824 humorous poem. More organized suggestions were listed in a book from 1867. Painting with a drawer, 1738

Sunday, August 7, 2022

Recipe manuscript - school project at a woman's college c1831

Ann Augusta Forman Cooley (1810-1890) filled this composition book with recipes, possibly started as a school project. Raised a Quaker in NJ, then from 1828 to 1831 she attended Van Doren's Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies in Brooklyn Heights, perhaps the first woman's college. Click images to enlarge.