A Taste of History at the Open Hearth

January 26 Irene’s Legacy: A Taste of History at the Open Hearth Skilled 18th century cook Mercy Ingraham returns to the kitchen fire at the Durand-Hedden House 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. this year as we honor our late longtime trustee Irene Kosinski. Irene, a gifted educator and lover of living history, oversaw the restoration of Durand-Hedden’s beehive oven in 1981. She went on to establish our perpetually popular open hearth cooking program, which for thirty years has drawn visitors who are ‘hungry’ for history. Mercy (a Charter Member of the Historic Foodways Society of the Delaware Valley) last cooked with Irene in 2011 and will reprise that day’s show-stopping fowl-on-a-string, this time, a duck, and preserved foods from the fall harvest. In addition she will prepare two of Irene’s favorite teaching lessons -- beaten biscuits using the reflector oven and Johnny cake, in the Dutch oven, plus seasonal recipes of her own. Children will be able to try their hand at old-fashioned cooking chores like kneading dough and making butter. The intriguing exhibit Where Can I Mail a Letter, The History of Maplewood’s Postal Service will be on view. Out in the carriage house the Country Store will open up its coffers for a “super discounted sale” of historic- themed treasures: early American children’s games, books and toys, facsimile documents, quill pens and ink, historic cook books, cookie molds, tin lanterns, hand blown blue birds, reproductive decorative items and ceramics, and more. The hard- to-find original Doors of Maplewood poster and Smile, the history of Olympic Park, will also be available. The Durand-Hedden House is dedicated to telling the history of the development of Maplewood and the surrounding area in new and engaging ways. It is located in Grasmere Park at 523 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood. For more information or to arrange group tours call 973-763-7712.