Little thoughts from the kitchen – Progress, good or bad?

I’m standing in the kitchen again, my muffins turning golden brown in the oven and my thoughts wandering once more. I must confess that one of the things I love most about making bread is the satisfaction I get from kneading the dough, knowing that I can get rid of some of the frustrations that, like many of us, feel at one time or another.

I’ve recently been rereading some of my favorite historical stories, which has made me think about what cooking was like a couple of hundred years ago. The story I’m reading right now concerns a simple one-course dinner consisting of a dozen dishes, including duck, lamb, pigeons roasted on a spit, game pie, glazed carrots, but not including many others. vegetables, as well as various garnishes designed to satisfy the most demanding palate.

Of course, in many country houses, possibly many terraced houses as well, the dining room was so far from the kitchens that when the diners had filed in after dinner was announced, they would have been lucky if their food was still available. hot when they came to eat it.

Now I love making my bread, which needs nothing more than the ingredients, an oven and my own hands, but God forbid I have to prepare even half the items that would have appeared on a Georgian or Regency table with the appliances. then in normal use. That is, pots and pans over open fires with hanging shelves and hooks, possibly in more affluent homes an enclosed stove with the convenience of a flat top for pans that once hung from hooks, perhaps even, as in the Brighton Pavilion , a fire pit. for those pigeons, chickens and so on. I don’t think I would have been too happy with the lack of those kind of labor-saving appliances that we can luckily have these days. I have to say that in my house at least, it would be unlikely that we would eat much before midnight if I had to prepare even half of the dishes set before our ancestors.

Plus, of course, not having a cook and maids, I doubt I’ll ever get that much food on the table, without my microwave, steamer, slow cooker, pressure cooker, etc., etc.

So overall and taking everything into consideration, I’m pretty content living now and not then, so in this case at least, Progress must be considered a good thing.