By Rick Palsgrove
Southeast Editor
Slate Run Living Historical Farm worker Rachel Brooks prepares to bake some rolls in the farm’s cast iron wood burning cook stove. Brooks said the wheat bread rolls were made from a recipe that could be whipped up quickly and eaten in a day. “It’s one of the reasons they called it ‘daily bread,’” said Brooks.
The heat of an Ohio summer did not deter our ancestors from firing up their cast iron wood burning cook stoves for baking and cooking.
“They still had to cook not matter how hot it was,” said Slate Run Living Historical Farm worker Natelle Ball.
While in the winter a warm cook stove was welcome for the additional heat it could add to the house, Ball said our ancestors avoided having a hot cook stove heating up their non-air conditioned houses in the summer by taking the stove apart and setting it up in a summer kitchen building detached from the main house.
Ball said a 19th century cast iron wood burning cook stove can weigh up to 500 pounds.
“They would take it apart in sections to move it and then reassemble it in the summer kitchen,”
said Ball. “It takes two to four people to move the stove.”
When asked why our ancestors did not just maintain two stoves – one in the house and one in the summer kitchen – Ball said, “Typically the stove was their most expensive appliance. Even if you could afford to have two stoves you didn’t because you don’t want a stove sitting around for months unused. It’s better for a stove like this to be used, otherwise it will rust.”
The stove at Slate Run Living Historical Farm is a piece of functional art as its cast iron facade features ornate engraved decorative touches while its interior workings produce the heat for cooking. The stove’s main parts are the firebox where the wood is burned to generate heat, the oven and stovetop for cooking and baking, and the water reservoir on the side which helps stabilize the heat.
Ball said the heat in the stove’s oven can fluctuate depending on the type of wood that is being burned.
“The stove is fun to cook and bake on, but it is labor intensive,” said Ball. “Every 20 minutes you have to add wood to the firebox and rotate the food to ensure even cooking and baking,” said Ball. “This stove can do the same things a modern stove can do, but you just have to watch it closer.”
Ball said the stove at Slate Run Living Historical Farm has been used to bake breads, cakes, pies, rolls, and cookies as well as for roasting meat and other daily cooking.
“Today we’re using the oven to bake bread rolls, but we’re also making something special – a watermelon cake,” said Ball.
The recipe for the watermelon cake comes from the 1883 edition of “The Buckeye Cookbook,” which describes the tasty treat as “a very ornamental cake.”
“The cake has no watermelon in it, but it’s made to look like a watermelon,” said Ball. “The cake has a white part and a red part and green icing. It also has raisins that represent watermelon seeds.”
Ball said watermelon cake is still made by people today.
“I’ve seen watermelon cake at the Fairfield County Fair,” said Ball.
Though the cooking and baking is done in the summer kitchen, the prep work is still done in the farm house kitchen.
“We get food ready in the kitchen and then walk it out to the summer kitchen to cook it,” said Ball. “All the hot stuff is done in the summer kitchen during the summer.”
