Colonial North American Cooking in the Seventeenth Century

In seventeenth-century colonial North America, all day-to-day cooking was done in the fireplace. Generally large, fireplaces were planned for cooking as well as for warmth. Those in the Northeast were usually four or five feet high, and in the South, they were often high enough for a person to walk into. A heavy timber called the mantel tree was used as a lintel to support the stonework above the fireplace opening.

Two ledges were built across from each other on the inside of the chimney. On these rested the ends of a "lug pole" from which pots were suspended when cooking. Wood from a freshly cut tree was used for the lug pole, so it would resist heat, but it had to be replaced frequently because it dried out and charred, and was thus weakened. When iron became easier to [#highlight3]obtain[/highlight3], it was used instead of wood for lug poles, and later fireplaces had pivoting metal rods to hang pots from.

Beside the fireplace and built as part of it was the oven. It was made like a small, secondary fireplace with a flue leading into the main chimney to draw out smoke. On baking days (usually once or twice a week) a roaring fire of "oven wood," consisting of brown maple sticks, was maintained in the oven until its walls were extremely hot.