The fires were lit anew in the wood-burning stove at Clear Creek History Park’s Pearce Cabin on Saturday, Sept. 20, as five women and one brave man embarked on a historical mission: Cooking lunch old-school style.
Attired incongruously in Tevas sandals and lace aprons, the crew prepared a menu designed by resourcefulness. The apple spice muffins were made with honey because there was no sugar. Fried mock oysters emerged from canned corn and egg. The mock pecan pie was really full of coconut and the mock apple pie was a subversive mixture of crumbled and whole Ritz crackers.
Although no one in Golden truly “lived off the land” during it’s mining hey-day, there were plenty of times when the general stores simply did not have the ingredients a pioneer needed for dinner, explained, said Linda Griffin, the workshop instructor.
Perhaps the oddest recipe Griffin presented to the group was a pie featuring cider vinegar as the main ingredient.
“Vinegar pie is what you made when you just had nothing,” Griffin said.
“I’ll take it to the next potluck,” joked Christine Sibona, a Denver resident who attended the first frontier cooking workshop during the peak of the July heat wave this summer. Sibona said she spent the majority of that workshop washing dishes on the cabin’s porch, far away from the heat of the stove.
“I’m interested in how people thought about food when there weren’t all these conveniences,” Sibona said. At the last class she attended, the participants had to harvest their ingredients from the history park’s heirloom garden before they could begin cooking.
This late in the summer, the garden is not producing as well as it used to. Bouquets of sage, thyme and rosemary hang from the cabin’s ceiling, drying so that they can be used throughout the winter.
Griffin cooked on a wood stove for nearly a decade in her home in Grand Junction. Although, she admits, she had a microwave right next to it.
Controlling the temperature of the stove is an art. Small wood burns quickly, so it heats the stove more quickly, but does not burn long enough to get the stove very hot. There is a 10 to 15 minute time lag to adjust the temperature by feeding in more wood, according to Griffin. And of course, no thermometer, even in the oven.
The location of the six burners on the stove also provide a temperature gradient: The two burners directly above the fire are high heat, the next two over are medium and the farthest over, just above the oven, are low. Can’t get your rabbit stew to boil? Move it over to the left.
And the stove has another secret, its takes care of half the kitchen trash.
“It’s a garbage disposal among its other many talents,” Griffin said and she slipped some paper towels into the fire.
The edible wastes, like the onion skin and egg shells, were fed to the chickens at the close of the workshop, after the washing up was finished.
“They didn’t have the trash problem,” said Normalee Lee.
Lee attended the first workshop of the summer, and along with Siboda, she came back.
“It’s just kind of a hoot,” Lee said.
Need to Know
Clear Creek History Park sponsors Frontier Cooking workshops throughout the year. Check out their Web site at http://www.astorhousemuseum.org/calendar.php for more information.
Vinegar Pie (from heritagerecipies.com)
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 c sugar
3 Tbsp flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 c water
1 9 inch pie crust
Cream butter and sugar. Sift together flour and spices then add to butter mixture. Beat in egg, vinegar and water. Cook in double boiler until thick. Pour into pie shell and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.