From the September 28, 1962 edition of the Vineyard Gazette by Joseph Chase Allen:

The one thing that every generation shares with the one preceding it, is the memory of that “grand, old-fashioned cookery.”

For seemingly, each generation can recall cookery which the youth of its day has never seen or tasted, and what is more, never will, because of various changes which have come into the American way of life.

There is just one thing, however, that ought to be taken into consideration. So accustomed is American Youth to hearing tales of old-fashioned cooking, that if he hears such a tale today, he thinks instinctively of open fireplaces, huge, burning oak logs, iron cooking pots and other weird containers buried in the ashes and embers.

Something ought to be said about this practice, and it is the aim of this writer to do so. It should be pointed out that between the Open Fireplace Period, and the Present era of the Tin Can and Frozen Dinner, there occurred the lengthy and wholly grand Age of the Kitchen Stove.

There were occasional fortunate souls who owned a sort of metal oven into which a roast could be installed on a spit, and the whole backed up to the open fire which worked its will on the roast through the open back of the oven. But the great majority of oldsters either heated the brick oven to a white heat before attempting to roast or bake anything, or they hung the leg of lamb on a spit or a string, and rotated it before the fire as it hung. The results varied.

The brick oven was probably as dependable as anything they possessed, but it would get very hot and it would cool most awfully cold. While some of the food came from it cooked to a turn, other dishes were dragged forth, sodden and half-raw. And there were times when the loaves of wheaten bread were so black that they had to be husked in order to identify them!

But this is only a small part of the story of ancient cooking. The arrival of the kitchen range upon the scene changed methods materially, and lightened the burden of cooking besides protecting the food from ashes which blew around, and embers which would fly with an explosive sound from the well-seasoned log, to drop into the chowder-kettle with a long-drawn hiss, and settle, in the form of a chunk of charcoal beneath the floating slices of eels, onions, potatoes, pork and the liquid in which they swam.

Experienced operators of the range employed methods which partook, in part, of the modernism of their day and the practices of the past. They remembered certain likable features of the fireplace, and put them into practice, such as baking, in a frying-pan on top of the stove, and roasting salt herring and dried eels, under the covers and on top of the oven.

The kitchen range, shortly after its first appearance, had a “broiling door,” through which a steak or chop could be thrust, there to blacken on the outside and char around the edges quite as thoroughly as such things were done in the fireplace. But most Vineyarders of the day sniffed at such things and quietly ignored them.

No one makes eel-stifle any more. But it is doubtful if they ever would have stopped if eels could have been obtained with the backbones removed, whenever desired. They do not roast shelldrakes, either. Roasted shelldrake, coot stew, and roasted loons, belong to the day of the fireplace, and the early day of the kitchen range.

The memories of feeds of this kind remain vividly indeed with the older inhabitants, who never cease to describe them as a combination of ambrosia and the manna of the Scriptures, but it is to wonder who would enjoy them today if they were served as once was usual.

For a shelldrake or merganser is a fish-eating fowl, a long-ranged descendant of the prehistoric pterodactyly, or flying lizard. Its long, round bill is provided with teeth, many of them, and the majority of hunters of this day and age will not even waste a cartridge on a shelldrake.

Yet, properly prepared, the shelldrake can provide an enjoyable meal. The point is, the old-timers did not “properly” prepare them. The late Josiah Torrey Hancock once observed that he preferred shelldrake and coot, “because I like something with some tang to it!” as he expressed himself. The loon-eaters probably held the same or similar view; otherwise they never would have drawn up to the roasted monstrosities which graced their tables after flight-shooting at loons.

All this is a long-winded way of getting around to the point of saying, in effect, that eating, in general, is enjoyed by most people when they are young. While they still have all their teeth, and do not have to take Tums, Zoons, or other mixtures of chalk and soda for acid stomach; while appetites are keen and capacity unlimited, and while meals, snacks, hand-outs and nourishment in other forms can be taken every two hours in the twenty-four and perhaps even more often.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

[email protected]