Historic ironwork/Hand forged baker's sign, 18th century

[ThomasPowers]

Found this in a BBC article on restoring a Building at Cambridge University  (www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47845898 ) As you can tell it's based on a downhearth cooking grill---you can see two the feet projecting from the right hand end.

 

[Frosty]

It took me a little looking to see it. By "down hearth" Would one fold down from the wall on a hinge on the left side and store folded up? Or probably be placed in hearth as needed. 

Do you know what the sign means?

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

It means that this was a bakery, just as an anvil would indicate that a shop was a forge. 

A “downhearth grill” was simply a grill one would put “down on the hearth” as needed, rather than over the fire. 

[ThomasPowers]

May I commend to your attention a simple browser search on:   down hearth cooking

[Frosty]

Interesting reading, having done a lot of campfire cooking myself.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I'm amazed at how fancy such cooking could be---I guess I shouldn't be as I've had peacock cooked over an open fire on a campout twice now---once was Peaduckhen!  The put the fire crafts---cooking and blacksmithing side by side and we used to share hot coals---when they raked out the oven the leftover coals went into the Y1K forge.  When they needed to fire up the oven a shovel full of coals from the forge acted as the starter.

[Frosty]

When I started cooking on a campfires in Boy Scouts 10? My first lesson learned was SMALL FIRE! It wasn't many outings and I was teaching scouts how to fry an egg, make stew, biscuits on a stick, etc. I discovered you do NOT bury a dutch oven in the COALS first try! ASHES with a few coals underneath and a few on top bakes bread, up the count 2-3 to bake biscuits. 

Dad appointed me camp cook when we were camping, I cooked he cleaned. Soon Mother turned over the camper stove to me. 

It's just a knack and I got lots of practice. I didn't realize it till I made "rock" bread with a couple church  members present. Whip up some bread dough, flour, salt, oil, yeast, mix and add enough warm water to make dough. Set bowl near enough to the fire to be warm but not hot. Half to an hour proof time and you pinch off balls, roll then flatten and slap it on a rock around the fire. Rock bread. Remove dough from dutch oven where it's been proofing, wipe it down with bacon drippings, etc. and get it smoking hot WHILE you kneed the dough ball with flour covered hands the smoosh it into the HOT dutch oven evenly put the lid on add a FEW coals and check in maybe 20 minutes. 

Didn't know I was making a version of what humans have been eating since they discovered ground dried grass seed and water makes bread. It was standard fare for the Roman Legions and if you leave out the yeast you're eating like Hebrews on the Exodus. The old way to leaven bread was to leave the dough often a wet mix that was later thickened with more flour containing salt and oil. Anyway, given a couple few hours enough yeast would settle on the dough to make a sponge and you had bread dough. I don't know why they didn't save some to use later or maybe the Hebrews on Exodus just didn't have an hour to let the dough rise.

Yest is EVERYWHERE, It's what you're polishing off an apple to make it shine, rub an apple with flour or better yet, float one in your proposed sponge, yeast LOVES sugar and flour. Grapes are loaded with yeast that's why you only need to crush or press the juice out of them to make wine. Desert was apple slices and juice in the dough with a little cinnamon. Doesn't need sugar, apples are sweet enough especially if you crush the juice out of one. 

I've never roasted anything more elaborate than: rabbit, spruce hen, ptarmigan, small game. Much as I'm no fan of ketchup Pepsi and ketchup makes a darned good BBQ sauce. go figure.

I'm getting carried away. Rest your eyes. 

Frosty The Lucky. 

[ThomasPowers]

Luckily I am reading this at Lunch...My first summer camp, we were making "buddy burners" out of large tin cans.  Our camp counselor was a city boy and was showing people how to build a fire in it by carefully layering up the twigs so tightly no air could get in and it wouldn't light. Me, I scrunched up some small stuff,  shoved it in and lit it on the first match.  I was cooking before anyone else and kindly shared my, working, cooktop with other campers---for a slice of bacon.   Another campout we were surprised with -20 degF weather.  I survived till morning in an unhappy state and as soon as it got light I crawled out and started to build a fire.  First match I struck and there was a WALL of other campers around me---helped keep the wind off the fire as it was getting started good.  Not long after a scout caught the bottoms of his sneakers on fire; very amusing until the heat transferred through to his feet---then EXTREMELY AMUSING!   Last Christmas I made a small froe for a couple of my grandkids as they are about the age to start learning about fire; but didn't have any hatchet skills...

[Frosty]

We never did buddy burners, heck I had to look it up. The closest we came was Sterno. When I was a Scout if you said 20 below it meant you were 20 feet below. -20 f. was a legendary story to be told around the campfire. Growing up in S. Cal. had it's limitations and most of us were city kids. Mother and Dad were rock hounds so we did a lot of camping. 

Our scout masters were almost all city kids too one of the tests we had to do was make a "fuzz stick" and 1 match fire. I was given a lot of grief for smashing the stick I was given to whittle into a fuzz stick between a couple rocks. My fire was going about the time the other kids had the second curl going. It was one of the only times Dad stood in opposition to the other scout master. Mr. X wasn't going to credit my 1 match fire. Dad lit a wooden match and said go, the stick was smashed and fire laid before it was half burned. 

I didn't think of many new(ish) things as a Boy Scout but smashing sticks in the back yard used to be one of my amusements, Dad wouldn't let me have my hatchet at home so I couldn't practice lumber jacking. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.