The Rural Voice, 2005-01, Page 314
Jib
In Praise of the Cook Stove
In the days before electric stoves, the wood stove was the centre
of the home, source of heat and food
By Barbara Weiler
There is a novel by Amy Tan
with the title "The Kitchen
God's Wife." It refers to an
oriental idol whose task it is to
preside over the kitchen.
It has always brought to my mind
an image of the cook stove in the
farmhouse of my childhood as god of
the kitchen. My mother hovered over
it and together they were
symbolically and physically the
centre of our home. It provided the
heat for the farmhouse, with pipes
and gratings allowing the hot air to
rise to the bedrooms in use above,
while the stairway, front room and
upper hallway were left unheated,
doors closed to keep in the warmth.
We still prize woodstoves today,
as a supplementary or major heat
source for our homes. Our
woodstove supplied not only heat but
was for many years the source of our
food as well.
Cooking on the woodstove,
especially baking, was a daunting
task for the neophyte. One had to
think not only of the measuring,
mixing and kneading of ingredients,
but of coaxing the oven to the proper
temperature. The process began with
kindling and newspaper strategically
placed, with dampers at just the right
setting. Small hardwood logs were
introduced at just the right moment,
and finally the large chunks that
would burn steadily for a long time.
The dampers readjusted, the oven
thermometer was checked to gauge
when exactly the right time had come
to slide in the apple pies or bran
muffins.
When my mother was first
married, she came to the farm from a
comfortable home in Toronto with all
the modern conveniences. My father
noticed that a pile of brush not far
from the house, which he had
planned to burn when fall came, was
mysteriously shrinking in size. This
mystery was solved when he
discovered that my mother had been
breaking up the small branches and
using them as kindling to light the
cook stove.
The warming oven on the top of
the range was perfect for rising bread
dough, and the tank on the side
provided hot water for a myriad of
uses from laundry to Saturday night
baths, to hot water bottles for
warming the sheets of chilly beds.
On top of the stove a large kettle
steamed away adding humidity to the
air, and at meal time the pots of
potatoes and pans of pork bubbled
and sizzled there. Delicious aromas
of baking apples or tea biscuits filled
with raisins greeted us as we arrived
home from our walk from school.
The wood box stood behind the
stove and keeping it filled was one of
the tasks assigned to the children in
the family. We trudged up and down
the cellar stairs to the dirt floor
basement where the wood was
stored, making sure that there was
always enough fuel to see mother
through the day. In the winter
months the stove was kept burning at
all times. My father rose to check it
during the night, to avoid rising to a
stone cold fire on a January morning.
Modern homes currently have
what is referred to as "great rooms",
open areas that combine kitchen,
eating and family rooms. The farm
kitchen was the equivalent of the
great room, with the cook stove at its
centre. The pantry, a narrow room
adjacent to the kitchen, was used for
the storing and preparation of food,
but the cooking, eating, and leisure
activities were all done in the
kitchen. We did our homework and
played games of crokinole at the big
table or we listened to the radio
while my father read the paper and
my mother mended or darned socks.
Saturday night was bath night
when we each took our turn in the
small tub behind the stove while we
listened to Foster Hewitt's "He
shoots, he scores!" from Maple Leaf
Gardens and cheered on Syl Apps,
Teeder Kennedy and goal tender
Turk Broda .
The warming oven also provided a
place to dry out sopping socks and
mittens after an afternoon outdoors
sledding, cross country skiing or
skating. I liked to warm up by
standing with my back to the side of
the stove, sometimes staying a little
too long, so that the smell of
scorched wool reminded me to move
away before I caught fire.
I tend to wax nostalgic about the
cook stove now, but at the time it
finally disappeared from our farm
house, shortly before our wedding, I
was not reluctant to see it go, making
way for oil heating and an electric
range.
To many homes, both urban and
rural, the woodstove or fireplace
have remained as a source of heat
and comfort. Few people have cook
stoves any more except the Old
Order Mennonite or Amish who
cling to the old ways, or those who
live in isolated areas. It is with a
feeling of security that people who
have a woodstove know that in
emergencies such as the power
blackout last year, the old standby
can be relied on for warmth and hot
coffee. With the threat of increased
power outages in the future, some
may contemplate the return of the
cook stove.0
JANUARY 2005 27