Pulling coals from side bake oven

  I love cooking and baking with fire and there was nothing about a cooking fire that was of a concern to me until I fired a side-opened bake oven.  This was the first time that I was raking out embers from an oven with my back to the open flame!  I had to be very cautious and was limited in space between the live embers dropping in front of me and the fire behind.

Firing Side Bake Oven

The snow falling this weekend reminded me of my firing this side bake oven one winter when there was snow on the ground.  No one remembered the last time the oven had been fired.  Caution was used to heat the oven slowly.  In the picture, my bake oven rake is in back of the large crock holding the sponge for the bread prepared from barm the night before. And just part of one of my three drying racks appears in the lower right corner.

Visit my newly up-dated website at:  www.hearttohearthcookery.com

My next class is February 4th, 2012 on Chocolate!!!

Plucking a Rooster

  This picture  of my plucking a rooster is over ten years old!  And what memories it brings back to me!  I have not kept count of how many chickens, roosters, turkeys, peacocks that I have plucked but it is many.  Fortunately, I did not have to do the “deed” but I would find the bird hanging on my “plucking rack” and still warm which is the best time to start plucking.  I would use the wet method of plucking to limit the tearing of the skin and allow visitors that “ah ha” moment of realizing that the birds packaged in the grocery store were living birds!  It is an awesome demonstration but for  some aspects I would place myself in an area where visitors had a choice of whether to view or not.  Roosters were frequently awaiting me as only one is needed for the hens.

Eating Sturgeon

  The taste of sturgeon is just “awesome”!!!  It has the fine-grained texture of shark or swordfish, but the flavor of bay scallops in extra butter.   It is rare to taste, but if you have the opportunity-try it!

Sturgeon

  With all the flesh one sturgeon provides for processing (see previous posts on sturgeon), I had to cook some.  I dragged embers under the rock and applied bear grease to keep the sturgeon from sticking.

Sturgeon on the Drying Rack

  Dressed in my trade cloth wrap skirt with silk ribbon and off-white linen trade shirt, I am tying the cordage with the cut sturgeon onto the drying rack to dry in the sun.  I still have this dried sturgeon to use in my 2012 Native American presentations.

Using a bone needle and cordage

  With a once-in-a-lifetime Pacific sturgeon to process (see previous post on Pre-Blog Bites Sturgeon), I wanted to process it in a manner that would preserve it for future use.  I cut the flesh with the skin on to dry in the sun.  In this picture, I am using a deer bone needle with cordage to prepare the fish for the drying rack.

Sturgeon

  This is the first of many “bites” that I will be adding to my blog that are from my many years of experimental archaeology with food.  The picture quality will reflect the use of older cameras. 

Karen Hess 2004 Amelia Award

  If you are interested in food history and have not read Martha Washington’s Book of Cookery, it should be a must read.  As I opened my well-loved book to do some research, I paused in remembrance at the signature of Karen Hess, October 30, 1993.  Karen was my idol, friend and mentor.  The book includes a transciption by Karen of a seventeenth century manuscript that was in Martha Washington’s “keeping” at the time of her marriage to Daniel Custis.  As the book plate states, Karen wrote historical notes and copious annotations.