1. Someone’s In The Kitchen at Rose Hill
Food, Cooking and Recipes of the 18th & 19th Century
Objective - Students will read an original 19th century recipe, explore and compare cooking techniques and food sources of the 18th and 19th Century with today, illustrate their understanding of new vocabulary and evaluate the challenges of cooking long ago.
5-8 NOTE: Most slides have separate questions or talking points for the older student.

2. Where do we find Recipes?
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K-2 – Preliminary question might be “What do we call the directions to cook something?” – Recipe.
Grade 3-8 – Suggested responses Cookbooks, magazines, computer, family, friends….
Grade 5-8 – Talking point – Oral Tradition ask students to define oral tradition and traditional recipes in families and communities.

3. Why Do We Need a Recipe? WARM UP SLIDE 2 0f 3
GradeK-8 To know the amount of each ingredient; to know what ingredients are needed; to know how many people it will serve; to know the order in which to make the recipe, the “procedure”, the steps; to have specific directions to follow especially for certain techniques that might be needed to make the recipe.

4. What are some of the different types of cookbooks you can think of?
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K-8 No wrong answers here. There are as many kinds as you can think of, breakfast, barbeque, desert, dinner, seafood, candy, party, holiday, cookbooks for kids, cookbooks for petfood, pizza, etc.
5-8 When did cookbooks first start to be popular, and what did we use before cookbooks? In America cookbooks were first published as “domestic instruction” helpers in the mid to late 19th century. Before that most recipe’s were passed down in families and hand written.

5. 1.Why were recipes handwritten?
In the 18th and 19th Century handwritten recipe books were kept by the mistress of the house.
1.Why were recipes handwritten?
2.What clues show us that this is an old recipe book?
K-3 Possible responses – 1. there were no cookbooks at that time for sale; it was the way cooks could try to remember special directions to make their food; it was a way for them to tell others how to make their favorite food…..
2. The page looks worn, and discolored.
3. The ingredients are not listed in real measures, but in word measures like a teacup, 3 cents worth, enough, etc..
4-8 Further question – What kind of family would have eaten this “cake”? Answers ought to include middle class because of the spices, and the cost.

6. What value would a handwritten cookbook have to the family in the 18th of 19th Century?
K-3 Possible responses - The handwritten cookbook would help the family find the directions to make the food that they all liked, and were able to make. The recipes used food ingredients that the family could get where they lived, “regional food”. The cookbook would show how much of something was needed to make the recipe, etc
4-8 further question – If the person who did the cooking was a slave, why are the earliest recipes without specific measurements important?

7. Compare the two recipes
What is different, What is the same?
GINGER CAKE
3 cups flour 4 tsp. ground ginger 2 tsp. cinnamon 2 sticks unsalted butter 1 cup light brown sugar 1 cup blackstrap molasses 1 cup boiling water 2 tsp. baking soda 2 large lighly beaten eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, ginger and cinnamon. Beat butter and brown sugar. Whisk molasses and boiling water, add baking soda. Add flour and molasses mixtures to butter mix.
Beat in eggs until smooth and thin. Add to glass baking dish.
Bake minutes.
Cool 10 minutes. Can be prepared as muffins - bake for minutes.
Submitted by: Jessica Thomason
K-8 Responses should include, handwritten and printed, measurement and words like “some” “enough” “little” , very little detail on how to make the cake in the older one, no detail on the pan, the temperature, or the time to bake it.
5-8 Try to re-write the handwritten recipe to make today. Would the end result be the same? Why/why not?

8. What kind of kitchen tools did the cook of the 18th and 19th Century use in the kitchen?
K-8 Cookware was made of iron. It was heavy and lasted a long time. Ask the students to try to name the objects in the pictures (top middle) tea kettle, (bottom left) iron pots, (bottom right) plate and utensils, (bottom middle) spider, a platform to rest pots over the coals.
K-8 Further questions – Where did this cookware come from? (often made locally)Who made it? (could be made at a local forge by a blacksmith) Was the cookware of the family valuable? (yes very valuable, without it there would be no cooked meals) Is cookware still made this way today? (no largely mass produced rather than hand made)

9. How and where was food cooked in the 18th and early 19th Century?
K-3 responses – In the hearth (fireplace); Iron pots could get very hot and stay in or near coals of the fire to cook the food. Food might burn if you didn’t know how to cook in the hearth.
5-8 How important was the skill of hearth cooking in the household economy? Response - Without this skill food could not be cooked at all.

10. What kinds of food would be prepared in the kitchen of the 18th and 19th Century? Why?
K-8 – Responses should always include regional foods they can name. BECAUSE before the 1850’s when roads and transportation routes were not yet developed in most parts of rural America cooks used what was local, nearby and whatever they may have preserved.
5-8 Name at least three methods of transportation that had the greatest impact on moving food to different markets. Response roads, railroads, canals.

11. Identify ways that food, cooking, and recipes are the same or different today compared to the 18th and 19th Century
K-8 Re-cap responses – all previous slide talking points. To be a review for Venn diagram and vocabulary preview to visit Rose Hill.

12. List ways recipes, cooking methods, and food of the18th & 19th Century and today are the same, different or both.
18th&19th Century Same Today
Copy this slide as a handout.
K-3 Complete the Venn and use as an assessment tool, using the definitions of vocabulary as the guide.
5-8 Consider an essay instead of the Venn or along with the Venn. An essay for this question should be at least 2 paragraphs.

13. Pre-visit power point suitable for various grades .
Print slides with notes for teacher prompts.
For further information and to book a tour contact
The Children’s Museum of Rose Hill Manor Park