Old Sweetwater

Old Sweetwater

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Wood Burning Stove?























Not long ago "The Egg and I" was on the classic movie channel. It starred Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. In the movie, city-slicker Claudette has a run-in with an old wood farm cookstove.
Well, one year my honey and I, along with a large group of friends, went to a cabin retreat in the Georgian mountains.  Imagine our surprise when we found it had one large, OLD wood cookstove to prepare meals on. Period. No microwave. No, nothing else. Meals for around 40 people. Ye-ah.

Buddy, we "fired her up," and began experimenting. It was slower than our modern counterpart, but I tell you the truth, it made great meals! The biscuits seemed especially delicious.
It was a blast feeling a connection with our pioneer ancestors too.
Anyone else ever cook on a wood-burning cookstove? Since my biscuits were immediately scarfed up, there were no photos, so I'll post these biscuits that closely resemble mine. They belong to Pinchmysalt.com. There are FAB recipes there!


25 comments:

Karen said...

That is so exciting. I've always wanted to try out a wood burning stove. Did it have one of those places to keep hot water? I have read that some of them had a tank for water to be heated up. I suppose that could have been for scooping out to wash dishes?
Have a wonderful day!
Karen
Ladybug Creek

Rita said...

We don't have a wood burning cook stove, but we do have a wood burning stove in our den. Oh, it smells soooooo good when that wood is burning! Those biscuits look scrumptious!

Unknown said...

Those biscuits look yummy.
No I have never cooked on a wood stove, the closest I have come to that is campfire cooking. Everything always tastes so good.

katie

Becky Garrison said...

A wood burning stove holds a very dear place in my heart! When I was very small (3-5 y/o in the mid-late 1950's) my grandparents, who lived on the hill above us, had a man who worked for them and he lived in an apartment over their garage. He had an old 'pot bellied' wood stove with one 'burner' that he cooked all his meals on. He would invite me to come in and share brown and serve rolls with him! He would bake them in that stove, drown them in butter, and we would sit there and just chow down! They were so good! I loved those times, and have always wanted a small woodburning stove in my own home.

Auntie sezzzzzz... said...

Nope, never personally cooked on a wood burning stove. But I remember my Great Aunt Josie's, in her old fashioned kitchen. :-)

I'm sure everything cooked on the one you used, was deeeeeeelicious. It seems that, this way is the way cooking was "meant" to be done, somehow.

Janean said...

Karen, if it DID have a place for hot water, we wouldn't have known to even look for it! We boiled water to wash dishes with on top of the stove. It was at least 60 inches long (double a regular range). I can recall two ovens to bake in - a large and a smaller one.

Lee said...

I had an Italian wood burning stove in my kitchen for years... it was beautiful, with brass legs and ornamental handles. I sold it because I needed the space for cabinets... never cooked on it.

Lee

kimsound studios said...

it's so cool to read this post! only this morning I was thinking about this trip ~ we still have our mustard seeds given to us by your husband. Thank you for the great time we had & a great story to remember :)

Oklahoma Granny said...

I've never cooked on a wood stove but it sounds so warm and cozy. I'm definitely going to have to check out that bisquit recipe!

Pondside said...

I remember that my grandmother used a wood burning stove - and then a coal burner - but I've never cooked on one. I'm not sure I'd know how!

McVal said...

I've never cooked on one before, but you make it sound glamorous!!!
Those biscuits look awesome!
We had a wood burning stove when we were kids, but it wasn't for cooking, it was for heating. AND for warming up our snowy gloves and rear ends...

Live.Love.Eat said...

Oh how I wish I had a wood burning stove AND one of those biscuits!!!!!!

Love the header on your blog. Thanks for your visit recently. I have been slow to reciprocating!

Anonymous said...

This is exciting. I have photos of my Grammy when she was a young bride with an old stove like this or perhaps a coal stove, in her kitchen. I give you all lots of credit to adapting quickly and not burning any biscuits! I can't help but imagine a blog 50 years from now featuring a picture of OUR stoves!

Debby@Just Breathe said...

I'm not sure if I would want to cook on one but I do love when we go away each year and there is now TV, phones, etc. That is a vacation.

Anonymous said...

I am glad that you enjoyed the experience. I am afraid I would have been in a panic! But like the pioneer women...you learn to adapt!

Lucy said...

I would so love a stove like this in the house, but I'd have to have a modern one too! (Too spoiled ya think?)

Beverly @ My Sew Sweet Studio said...

Nope, never cooked on a woodburning stove. Once when we went to a friends cabin in the mountains, you had to light the pilot to heat the oven. I burnt off all my eyelashes and eyebrows. That is about as rustic as I want to get. Yummy biscuits. Maybe you would share your recipe here sometime.
Just read a book where they used a woodburning stove called "Christmas by the Book"

Technodoll said...

Sounds like it must have been awesome! I've never cooked on one but sure wish to... Perhaps in our next home I'll get one :)

deb said...

i have lots of memories of my great grandmother's and her woodstove.....she had to heat the water for dishwashing on it, as she didn't even have running water.

my mother has an old stove stored in her garage, similar to your pic, but smaller. i can have it any time, but i just dont really have a place for it our log home. maybe someday i will....or we could put out in our little fishing cabin we will build someday.

dj

Lillian Robinson said...

I don't know if I'd like cooking on it, but I sure like the way it looks!

Rebecca Lewis said...

Yes ~ I have cooked on an old wood burning stove and I love it!
It was my grandmothers and it had been taken out of her home having been replaced with a more modern stove in 1970. Having been saved for "Someday", my parents had it installed in a workshop that they use, one that my mother eventually plans on converting to a little retreat away from the house one day.

The best part of cooking with the stove was that my grandmother was able to share in the joy of firing the old stove up again ~ I could actually see the excitement in her eyes. That day we had a sled riding party with the family, I made homemade chili and cornbread that evening, and she shared stories of many meals cooked, the best kind of wood for baking bread, canning, and even doing laundry with the "old girl".
The one comment that we all made was unanimous.....we all remember the stove being bigger for some reason....perhaps because we were all so little the last time we saw it!

Marla said...

I love that movie!! The cook stove is awesome. We actually had one in our old farm house and my aunt had one also. I sure miss those days.

Lorilee said...

I would be lost! How do you know what the temperature in the oven is? I do think they are pretty though.
Blessings,
Lorilee

Windy Ridge said...

That is Awesome:)

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