If you frequent colonial-era house museums you will be quite familiar with seeing all manner of heavy cast iron pots, pans and tools crammed or clustered in kitchen fireplaces, sometimes sitting on iron ‘dogs’ on the floor of the fireplace or suspended from ‘cranes’ fitted into the brick work. But rarely do we see these seemingly rudimentary set-ups in operation in Australia, let alone get to actually prepare food on them.
Hearth fire cookery
The hearth fire and bread oven firing up at the Bixby’s cottage, Old Sturbridge Village, USA. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
