I spent a wonderful day yesterday with my historic cooking friends in Toronto. It is a bit of compensation for the fact that I will not be seeing my living history friends at the Civilian Symposium at Harrisburg this coming week. Mongomery,s Inn dates from the 1830’s and was turned into a museum 40 years ago this week. As well as a barroom, a ballroom and lots of bedrooms, they have two separate open hearths, both of which were animated yesterday. It also has a small bake oven beside one hearth and a larger bake oven outside. Yesterday the smaller bake oven was in use.

This is the first time I have been in a period costume since I went down to Gettysburg and made my slippers, so I got to take them out for a spin. I still need to get some roving and stuff the toes to make them a bit more square, but I wore them all day and they were very comfortable:

I made “Another Vegetable Soup” from Maria Rundell’s A New System of Domestic Cookery, 1806 for the volunteer cooks to eat for lunch. What’s not to like…a bunch of vegetables and 1/2 a pound of butter!

Cutting up my veg (Sarah in background)

Stirring my soup

I then helped Sarah (B.Hood) make Cider Cake from Lydia Childs’s The Frugal Housewifes Manual, 1840, using a bake kettle. I must say I actually understand the bake kettle a lot more this morning than I did yesterday morning. Learning curves…you gotta love ’em!

Putting the coals on the bake kettle