Placing sweet potatoes in or on coals from a fire is an easy way to cook them...and that is how they were cooked in the painting "General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal." The image was on the $10 bill of the Confederate States, and on a post war South Carolina $5 bill...
Old Economy, founded in 1824, is a marvelous collection of 17 buildings filled with furniture and items made by the Harmonists. Most of the buildings are brick, but the wooden community kitchen has interesting openings (vents) in the roof.
Plates were warmed in the kitchen or in fancy plate warmers suitable for the dining room.
The open side of the plate warmer faced the fire to slightly heat the plates. The plates could be removed in some, through a door on the side opposite the fire. ...
The following four recipes on Cardoons, Sherdoons and Artichokes are from William Verral's book A Complete System of Cookery. London: 1759
Peach picking in Delaware, 1878 and Georgia, 1887 with details of baskets, staff, ladders, wagons and a sorting table; pictures of Peach Houses, how to dry the peaches in Peach Kilns and ovens, and a recipe for Peach Pickles, 1774.
Corn on the cob.... as street food.... in 1808... The girl is selling corn on the cob that was boiled in the husks and served with salt on the streets of New York City. Adding a bit of butter with the salt is not new... 
An exercise chair with inner springs (illustrations below) from early 18th century was used by diverse people from the author of the novel Pamela, John Wesley, the children of King George III and prisoners to James Bond...
Chantilly Cake or Trifle Cake, from early 1800, is a trifle within a
Savoy Cake. The top of the tall cake is
cut off and the inner part of the cake removed to form a container for the
custard, whipped cream and liquors: Port (“Lisbon Wine”), Brandy,
and White Wine. 
Although the exhibition at the New York City Public Library, "Lunch Hour NYC," is over, there is an online exhibit HERE . It is fun to see the links have been put on the 'doors' of the Automat... 
This picture is identified in the British Museum collection as Interior of a London Coffee-house. Anonymous. 1650-1750. Closeups from this and other images show some equipment in coffee houses of the period...
This hedgehog has a sweet almond paste body with slivered blanched almonds for the spikes. The original receipt from Hannah Glasse, 1777 and my modern interpretation is below. Also a description of hedgehogs as "timid, shy and stupid" and yet it was their attacker who became "fatigued with fruitless attempts to annoy it" and left. 1822
Not all metal ovens are Rumford Roasters. Count Rumford (Benjamin
Thompson, 1753 - 1814) and his Roasters, pictured left, are certainly the most well known, but other iron and tin ovens inserted into the side of the hearth were used in Europe and the United States such as the Reip Oven and Roaster of Maryland, patented in 1825. 
For those of us who have occasionally read a book in one hand while stirring with the other... here is a sketch from 1859. "Showing why the dinner was late" is from Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper by Timothy Shay Arthur, Philadelphia: 1859
The USDA is 150 years old today. On May 15, 1862 President Lincoln signed the order to create what he called The People's Department - the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To honor Lincoln, the 'Abraham Lincoln Tomato' was introduced in the 1920s, and The People's Garden project was started in 2009, the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Mother's Day is this Sunday. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day on May 9, 1914. His mother, Jesse Woodrow Wilson, 1826-1888, wrote a handwritten recipe book. Among the recipes was one labeled - "Woodrow's favorite - Charlotte Russe" see below...
Although her "Burnt Custard" sounds, well, burned, it is composed of delicious layers of various textures.
Sponge cake slices (Savoy Cake) are placed on the bottom of a bowl. A sweetened cream (liquidy custard) of egg yolks, milk and sugar, is poured on top. Then... 
Mary Randolph included a sketch of a refrigerator in
the 1825 2d edition of The Virginia Housewife. It was a
wooden box within another wooden box with crushed charcoal in-between. It was described in 1815, but not the first refrigerator...
A patent for a refrigerator (ice box) was granted to Thomas Moore and signed by President Thomas Jefferson. In 1802 Jefferson went to the Moore home in Montgomery County, Md to see the new Refrigeratory, and later bought one.
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