Pounding Almonds and Roasting Chicken, 1800-style

If you're curious about cooking in a kitchen designed in the 1790s, you'll like this picture. Not so much for the fact that it documents me in the process of laboriously rendering down half a pound of almonds to a flourlike consistency with a mortar and pestle (that took a while!), as because it shows several antique cooking implements in use in the background.

Behind me to the left is the open door of the wood oven, heating up. You let the logs burn for about four hours, then rake out the coals into the firebox below. When it's cool enough that you can (just) stick a bare arm in without discomfort, you can start baking. It makes a big difference how far in you slide your trays; 15 inches or so can make the difference between deliciousness and charcoal.

To the right of the image, in front of the hearth, there's a reflector oven baking a chicken and a griddle with Derby Cakes (1831) browning over the open flame.


Here's a closeup of the chicken to show you how this simple but very convenient and effective device works. The chicken gets pinned to the skewer with something like a large steel hatpin to hold it in place as you turn and lock the skewer in various positions. Dripping fat is collected on the bottom.


Here, my pal Gillian and I arrange the 1796-vintage"mackaroons" we made from the pounded almonds on a baking tray ready for the oven. The "receipt" did call for lining the tray with paper, though perhaps not parchment paper that comes in a cardboard box with a serrated metal tear strip. Also, as you see, we have not yet been issued period clothing.


Here's the exhibit of baked goods produced by the historic cooks-in-training today. In the foreground are the finished Derby Cakes. Next, in clockwise order, are hard gingerbread (1831), Rout Cakes (1806), Queen Cakes (really a type of muffin with orange flower water and rosewater) and our almond mackaroons, which are essentially little almond meringues. Not an enormous output by modern standards, but you really feel a sense of accomplishment when you manage to work with the tools and instructions of 200 years ago and the results are this good.

Many thanks for the photos by Mark D'Aguilar!