18th Century Hearth Cooking, Versus Field Cooking, or How I Spent My Weekend

 

Leek Tart cooked by the Author

A couple of Saturdays ago, I took an 18^th Century Hearth Cooking class at ‘Old Fort Niagara’, in Lewiston, NY.  It was a great class and we cooked a variety of dishes in the ‘boulangerie’ of the ‘Old Castle’.  Everything was cooked on the large kitchen hearth, built into the outside wall of the room, and all of the baking was to be done in the bake oven, that was built outside the far end of the Old Castle.  Unfortunately, the oven was not able to hold its temperature due to high winds off Lake Ontario, so all of the baking had to be done in Dutch-ovens.  I was part of the team that cooked a leek tart, and the leeks and the roux filling were cooked over the coals at the front of the hearth, before baking the tart.  It was great fun!  I learned a lot and everything tasted great, but how would this apply to field cooking in the wilderness?

 

Emerson Hough, Out Of Doors, p. 262

First things first, in both hearth and field cooking, coals are for cooking or boiling and flames are for broiling or frying.  This is old advice, Emerson Hough wrote about this in 1915 and it is still good advice today.

 

The Kitchen Heath, in the “Boulangerie” of the “Old Castle” of Old Fort Niagara

In the kitchen hearth, pictured above, we piled up the wood and had three fires burning at the back of the fireplace against the fire back.  The pots of water and soup were hung and set to boil from the iron fireplace cranes at the back of the hearth, over the flames.  As the wood burned down to hot coals, the glowing embers were dragged to the front of the hearth, where the various sauces and casseroles were cooked on iron trivets, four to five inches above the glowing embers. 

In the field, the Backlog fire is the closest that the outdoor cook will get to the kitchen hearth.  A backlog, according to 1899 edition of The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia is, “A large log placed at the back of an open wood-fire to sustain combustion and concentrate the heat”.  A backlog, just like a fire back in a kitchen hearth, will reflect the heat forward. 

To build a Backlog fire in the field, first decide if you are building it of logs or stone.  The classic backlog fire is built with a wooden backlog and two wooden side-logs, however if wood is scarce, all or part of it can be built with stones; with a stone back and two rows of side-stones.  Before we go any further, please remember this important safety note, when building a fire lay with stones, porous stones gathered from wet ground or streambeds may hold enough water to explode when heated by a campfire, you should always use non-porous or dry rocks.

 

All above from Charles F. Smith, Games and Recreational Methods, Boy Scout Edition, p 273-276

Illustration by the Author

When building a classic backlog fire, place either a large slow-burning backlog at an angle of about sixty degrees to the direction of the wind.  Next, build a Trapper fire, also sometimes called a Hunter fire, at a right angle to the backlog.  A Trapper fire lay is built by setting two side-logs, to act as firedogs or andirons, to support your cooking pots and to contain and reflect the heat from the hot coals as they are pulled forward from the fire.  The side-logs are either set parallel or in an open-ended ‘V’, with the open end at a distance apart that will accommodate the size of you cooking gear and the ends closest to the back-log about four to six inches apart.  The side-logs and the backlog confine and reflect the heat of the fire and control the draft.  To increase the draft you can raise the side-logs at the open end by a placing small stick, called ‘dampers-stick’ under them, this allows air to flow under the side-logs.  Because the backlog is set at an angle of sixty degrees from the direction of the wind, the perpendicular side-logs will be angled towards the wind, but not directly into it. 

 

From Gilcraft, Scouting Out-Of-Doors, p 21

The last thing to do before you build and light your fire is to put up your ‘dingle’ stick or pot crane.  Your dingle stick should be straight and strong enough to hold a pot of water over the fire, it should also be notched or have a branch stub left at the upper end to hold your pot bail.  Sharpen the lower end of your dingle stick, shove it into the earth, while leaning it against the rear of the backlog or a forked stick, and hold the lower end down with a heavy rock or forked stick or two as ground stakes.

Lastly, build your fire between the side-logs and against the backlog and rake the hot embers to the front of the ‘V’ as they develop.  The side-logs will support your pots and you can boil more than one pot and fry something at the same time.

 

Author’s vintage iron pot, by the Author

 

From Gilcraft, Scouting Out-Of-Doors, p 26 

So you have your cooking, boiling and frying taken care of, but what about your baking?  Most people aren’t going to be baking a Leek Tart in in the field, but if you were, how would you do it?  If you have a Dutch oven, you can set it up at the wide end of your Trapper fire.  Dutch ovens work great, but personally, I don’t like to carry them with me in the wilderness, because they are heavy.  Gilcraft, however suggested a solution to this problem, when he wrote that you could use an iron cooking pot, as an oven, instead, placing it at the wide end of your trapper fire.  “Using a strong iron bowl as an oven, first scrape away all of the leaves and forest litter, to expose the mineral soil, and light a fire and keep it going until the ground is quite hot and there is a good supply of coals; rake the embers away leaving a clear patch in the middle large enough to take a pan, bowl or plate that contains the item to be roasted or baked.  Next invert your iron bowl over your baking plate so that it rest evenly on the ground all of the way around the bowl.  Now rake the embers back all of the way around the bowl, but not on top of it.  Keep a good hot fire going around the bowl for five minutes, after that a slow fire should be maintained.  You can place a billy-can of water on top of the bowl to boil while your food bakes.”  This solves the weight problem, since my 10” across and 5”deep iron pot, without a cover, weighs a mere 4-1/4 pounds, as compared to a Lodge brand Dutch oven of the same size, which weighs just over 13 pounds. 

Gilcraft’s solution mentions “slow fire”, in modern terms this is low to medium heat and can be achieved in the field, by steadily adding small and medium-sized pieces of hardwood, just enough to maintain a low or ‘slow’ fire, as your food cooks.

Happy Cooking!

Sources:

Explorer Manual, (Boy Scouts of America, New York, NY [1950]) p. 113-118

Samuel Fatzinger, "Jamming Out with Rosemary", 11/27/17, Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (emroc), https://emroc.hypotheses.org/date/2017/11, (accessed 11/20/18)

Gilcraft, Scouting Out-Of-Doors, The Gilcraft Series, No. 3, (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., London [1926]) p. 15-26, reprinted in http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/ScoutingOutdoors.pdf, (accessed 11/8/18)

Emerson Hough, Out Of Doors, (D. Appleton and Company, New York, New York [1915]) p. 262, reprinted in https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadnZNQ1xrsbkS3T4VJlC_uZQ8t4yj2UNH5POGbNio-1SDyFM8TAqUfl7ciDY5CuNZxvnnE0Pcxf1j6Thu_zOs5kz8rgR9MOtsbTxVgRVa3bwaKo0-D5YX2T4JaBO_z6G8vgwFNgLiJ9XCfBVnn9K4qR7ZFa0faNe3zmvfWDfmEo049sqXQlw697XIHDWNblRJj9niiabZoBB7aQHl82tf4y03cpU2hMdLVADF-7P2pvJKsZbLDnJN8ncLZ9IftMudapmn8E, (accessed 11/8/18)

Leonard Miracle and Maurice H. Decker, Complete Book of Camping, (Outdoor Life, Harper & Row, New York, NY [1963]) p. 330-332

Clyde Ormond, Complete Book of Outdoor Lore, (Outdoor Life, Harper & Row, New York, NY [1966]) p. 125-128

Charles F. Smith, Games and Recreational Methods, Boy Scout Edition, (Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, NY [1925]) p. 273-276

Barbara Swell, Log Cabin Cooking, (Native Ground Music, Inc., Asheville, NC [1996]) p. 7

William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: A Work of Universal, Volume 1, (the Century Company, New York, New York [1899]) p. 414, reprinted in https://books.google.com/books?id=0Ng5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+century+dictionary+and+cyclopedia%22+volume+1&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4heyctMXeAhWmr1kKHSbDBHg4KBDoAQgpMAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20century%20dictionary%20and%20cyclopedia%22%20volume%201&f=false, (accessed 11/8/18)