Sun. Jan. 26 1-4 pm. A Taste of History - Annual Open Hearth Cooking Demonstration at Durand-Hedden

Durand-Hedden Offers Taste of History

Annual Open Hearth Cooking Demonstration, Sunday, January 26, from 1pm to 4pm

MAPLEWOOD, NJ – January 2020 – In an annual tradition spanning over 35 years, visitors have gathered around Durand-Hedden’s 18th century hearth and experienced how Maplewood residents of long ago cooked, ate, and kept warm during the long winter months.

On January 26, Durand-Hedden is pleased once again to welcome skilled cook Margaret Quinn to our annual historic cooking program. Margaret has worked in the living history field for over twenty years and has become proficient at wood stove and open earth cooking. She continually expands her culinary knowledge as a participant in the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums and the Historic Foodways Society of the Delaware Valley.

On the menu this year will be sweet pork sausage and apples sautéed at the hearth in a spider (a short-handled three-legged skillet) then topped with gravy, parsnips stewed in a kettle hanging from the crane over the fire, and beef collops and potatoes also fried in a spider. For a sweet there will be rice pudding, possibly accompanied by a surprise baked in the reflector oven.

As usual visitors will enjoy learning about the history of the food and the fireside cooking techniques that Margaret is using and will love sampling centuries-old treats. Children can try their hands at old-fashioned cooking chores such as kneading dough and churning butter.

An Annual Tribute

Durand-Hedden’s mid-winter open-hearth cooking demonstration has become an annual tradition to honor 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 ‘hungry’ for history.

Country Shopping

Check out our Country Store’s historic-themed treasures: early American games, books, and toys; facsimile documents; quill pens and ink; historic cookbooks; cookie molds; tin lanterns; and reproductive decorative items and ceramics. There is local honey and the Original 1910 Chocolate Fudge Sauce. You’ll also discover the hard-to-find original Doors of Maplewood poster, Smile: A Pictorial History of Olympic Park 1887-1965, and the new acid-free reproduction of the charming 1931 Map of Maplewood.

About Durand-Hedden House and Garden

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. You can also visit our website at durandhedden.org and find us on Facebook and Twitter.