Heart to Hearth Cookery

Roasting on a string is one of my preferred methods of roasting but one that is very difficult to find the documentation in the 18th century.  The two most quoted references are from Susannah Carter’s The Frugal Housewife and Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy,  but in both sources the receipt is for roasting pigeons.

Priscilla Lewis White (b. 1794)  grew up in Walpole, Massachusetts.  Her reminiscences of growing up were published which included this description “…Meats hung to roast in front of the fire with a spider to catch juice underneath…” 

19th century documentation is much more easy to find.  In a letter Charlotte Haven wrote in Illinois to her family in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1843, included the following:

  “….dined…on roast turkey, which was cooked by being suspended by a string from the mantel-piece, with the spider beneath to catch the gravy…”    I find (and so do class memebers of my hearth cooking classes) that roasting on a string is one of the best methods of roasting and results in succulent flesh to eat!   My November 7th hearth cooking class is filled but there are still a few openings in the November 14th class at Bolton Mansion.  Please visit my website – www.hearttohearthcookery.com – for more information on the class and for information on how to reserve a place.