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Colonial Pennsylvania Farmstead, It's History!

Colonial Pennsylvania Farmstead in Newtown Square, PA

Caption Text Below:    

00:18 - So out

00:19 - here in the farm said we show you roughly 1762 1790.

00:22 - So right before, during and after the revolution.

00:47 - And so we're right outside Philadelphia.

00:49 - We're close to.

00:49 - We're in Chester County in the 18th century.

00:52 - Near, Chester. So it's a very active time.

00:55 - Revolution's causing a lot of social, political, cultural,

00:59 - even technological changes.

01:01 - So this part of land has been farmed for over 300 years.

01:05 - We know that the Lenape who were in this area prior

01:08 - to this being a William Penn land grant in the late 1600s.

01:12 - And when it originally came, it was just cleared land forest to be cleared land.

01:16 - The land grant changed hands a couple of times before,

01:20 - in 1720, the Pratt family, who we know the most about, came here.

01:24 - They actually indentured themselves and their two sons to gain

01:28 - passage to the colonies.

01:29 - And they came over.

01:31 - They purchased the property in 1720,

01:34 - and then they were here until 1820 with the fourth Joseph Pratt.

01:38 - The families engaged in the world wide economy.

01:41 - They can access almost any good out of the Port of Philadelphia.

01:44 - They have they're growing wheat and flax here on the farm.

01:47 - Those are both considered

01:48 - cash crops that are going over to England as raw material.

01:51 - So the Pratt family, we use their inventories to get a sense of

01:54 - what an upper middle

01:55 - class family would look like in Chester County during the time.

01:58 - So an inventory or probate with between their will

02:01 - and list of property of what's in the house.

02:03 - So what was their property within their house?

02:05 - So what is their furniture? Down to the chair.

02:08 - What are some of their personal belongings?

02:10 - The materials that they have.

02:11 - It also has ownership of the land, the outbuildings as well as animals.

02:17 - And that's how we get the name of the several enslaved individuals.

02:20 - We know that despite them being notable Quakers in the area,

02:23 - they had at least four enslaved individuals here on the property.

02:27 - Joseph Pratt, the first, had two individuals whose,

02:31 - Peggy and Cuffy, and then when he died, he manifested them in his will.

02:35 - Manumission is referring to you gain your freedom after paying a certain

02:39 - amount of money, upon the death of your enslaver.

02:43 - People are always surprised when they hear that, Quakers did own slaves.

02:48 - There were, they were a minority.

02:53 - There were only half as many as slave

02:55 - people in Pennsylvania as it was, say, in New York state.

02:59 - But, one of the reasons was because there was a significant labor shortage.

03:04 - Indentured servants of seven years, usually, in as part of the indenture.

03:10 - And then they are free to go.

03:12 - They're often given headland.

03:14 - So they have their own land they leave to make their own way in the world.

03:19 - So when Joseph Pratt, the

03:22 - first bought this farm, he had a young family.

03:25 - I think they were all under the age of five.

03:28 - And so having cooked here, I would say they probably,

03:32 - he probably bought Peggy because his wife needed help in the farm.

03:37 - One of the reasons for having a large family was that you had a lot of helpers,

03:41 - but small children are not a help.

03:44 - So that was possibly, what motivated,

03:48 - Joseph Pratt to become a slave owner.

03:52 - And so Joseph Pratt, the second, also had two enslaved individuals,

03:56 - Susanna and York, as Susanna was you mitted in 1775.

04:01 - We have her manumission record that says that she was, freed

04:06 - or was was able to purchase her freedom.

04:08 - Unfortunately, we don't know anything else that happened to Peggy.

04:12 - Susanna coffee in York after their time here on the farm.

04:15 - When you come to the farmstead, you follow the path.

04:18 - You're greeted by the historic farmhouse

04:20 - that was built over about a 100 year time period.

04:22 - We also have the oldest building on the property is the stone cabin.

04:26 - We believe it dates back to roughly 1680s.

04:29 - Actually predates the historic farmhouse.

04:31 - We're not entirely sure with the original function of that structure was

04:35 - because it probably had many different flexible reasons over the years.

04:38 - Could have been an original dwelling.

04:40 - It could be a spring house based on its built into the side of the hill.

04:43 - It could have been where Susanna, Peggy Covey or York lived at one point.

04:48 - Right now we use it as our textile area and kind of a storage space as well

04:52 - for our textile equipment and materials.

04:54 - We also have two different barns, so we represent a two barn system.

04:58 - One is the animal barn.

04:59 - The bottom half of the animal barn is where the stalls are for our large

05:03 - animals.

05:04 - The top part is where we have storage for their feed and supplies.

05:07 - We also have a wagon barn at the top of the farm wagon or a grain barn.

05:11 - So that's where you're storing your wagon, your equipment.

05:14 - And we do woodworking in there as well as grain storage.

05:17 - The top part of the wagon barn

05:18 - would be for our grain storage are wheat, rye, barley, as well as our flax.

05:23 - And you can store it.

05:24 - You can actually open either end of the barn and have a breeze go through there.

05:28 - For storage

05:30 - for. To

05:38 - the house was constructed over about a 100 year time period.

05:42 - So when you look at the items outside of the house, you can actually see

05:45 - the seams, where the different spaces of the house were built on

05:50 - to, well, the house, as, Sarah said, it

05:53 - grew over several centuries.

05:56 - Well, 140 years total, we think so.

06:00 - The East east parlor, the original house was basically,

06:05 - we think, a freestanding cube.

06:07 - It has a cellar, two rooms above it, and an attic.

06:11 - So the middle part of the house was added about 1750s.

06:15 - The actual sequence is where it is up for debate.

06:18 - Because there is so much evidence, it's very difficult to interpret

06:22 - unless you're an architectural, archeologist.

06:25 - But they built the central section, then they built the bit upstairs,

06:29 - and then they added this kitchen on in 1790.

06:32 - And then finally a 40 years later,

06:35 - they actually added the last six feet of the kitchen, and the upstairs.

06:39 - So in the first room in the house, you'll see that was roughly 1690s.

06:44 - And it shows a very rustic room

06:46 - and a 1690s kitchen versus what we're in now in 1790.

06:50 - So you can see the technological and the change from about a hundred year

06:54 - time span.

06:55 - When you go up the windows stair in the east parlor is furnished

06:59 - as either a child's bedroom or just somebody of lower status.

07:04 - I think you'd probably say it was a child's bedroom at the moment,

07:07 - because we do have a few toys there.

07:09 - What strikes people most is how austere it is.

07:12 - Privacy was, at a premium.

07:15 - And so the bed in there would have been shared by, 2 or 3 children.

07:20 - Very few people ever slept alone.

07:22 - The bed there is resting on an 18th century

07:25 - bed frame which has a ropes,

07:29 - supporting what we would call the mattress called.

07:32 - The bed is very confusing.

07:34 - So the bed on there currently, is filled with straw.

07:39 - The parents room on the other side does have a small heating fireplace.

07:43 - There's also a cradle and slightly better furniture.

07:46 - There's a relatively comfortable chair.

07:49 - People in the 18th century didn't have rocking chairs.

07:52 - They didn't have comfy upholstered, day beds and couches.

07:57 - The closest you got was a chair, because sometimes it might be

08:01 - the only place where you could get away if you were the former.

08:05 - You want to just to do something quiet away from the hustle

08:08 - and bustle of the household.

08:09 - Your bedroom might be the only place you could go.

08:13 - And then, of course, the most striking feature of the room

08:15 - is the fact they've got curtains and also bed curtains around the bed.

08:19 - Fabric as Sarah described, making linen.

08:22 - It takes an enormous amount of labor.

08:24 - And so this is why often the only house room in the house that might have curtains

08:29 - would be what we would call the master bedroom.

08:31 - When that house was built, most people were living in one room cabins.

08:34 - So although the house is small, it's actually was quite an investment

08:38 - on the part of the builder.

08:39 - It has glass windows.

08:41 - It has high ceilings.

08:43 - So, you know, your perspective changes a bit

08:47 - when you realize that the houses that survived the modern time

08:51 - are all the best houses that were built

08:54 - in the late 17th, 18th century, whatever period.

08:58 - They weren't all like that.

08:59 - We've just seen the best.

09:01 - There were plenty of people that were living in places

09:04 - that we wouldn't dream of putting an animal.

09:13 - To farming,

09:13 - about 95, 99, 95% of Pennsylvanians or colonists were engaged in farming.

09:19 - Even if you had another profession.

09:24 - So on the farm said, we have a variety of heritage

09:26 - breed animals that you would see on an 18th century farm.

09:30 - Very typical farm animals are a part of life.

09:32 - So they do provide a food source, both from meat as well as eggs and dairy.

09:37 - They also provide work and power.

09:40 - So we'll start with our little animal.

09:42 - Our chickens and ducks and turkey.

09:45 - They provide meat.

09:46 - They provide feathers.

09:47 - So quill pens or down, down feathers.

09:51 - But they also provide eggs.

09:52 - Chickens provide a lot more eggs than turkeys or geese.

09:56 - Or ducks.

09:58 - Chicken can lay up to 300 eggs a year, so their primary source of protein

10:02 - all throughout the winter.

10:03 - So their primary function is eggs as opposed to one chicken dinner.

10:08 - We also have sheep.

10:09 - We have 12 sheep out here on the farm in the 18th century.

10:12 - They'd be for meat and for wool.

10:13 - We use them primarily for wool.

10:15 - So they get shorn in the spring,

10:18 - and it's just like a big haircut for them, because their wool keeps growing.

10:21 - It's our responsibility as farmers, both from an 18th century historic perspective

10:25 - as well as modern, to care for them and take all of that wool off from them.

10:29 - And then we can use the wolf for the full process to create textiles out here.

10:35 - We also have two horses and an ox.

10:38 - So in the 18th century, you would absolutely see larger

10:41 - animals on the farm, such as cows, or oxen.

10:44 - So an ox is a neutered male that's trained to do work.

10:48 - Kind of two options for a neutered male train a neutered males, a steer.

10:52 - So hamburger or meat?

10:54 - Meat industry.

10:55 - Or being trained to do work.

10:58 - So think of an ox like a tractor on a modern day farm.

11:01 - They can pull their weight in them then some.

11:03 - If you've ever heard the phrase strong as an ox.

11:05 - That's what they're here for. They're here for their strength.

11:07 - They're a little bit slower, but they're incredibly strong.

11:09 - So they can pull a plow.

11:11 - They can pull a carriage. They can pull a wagon.

11:13 - They can pull down very heavy logs.

11:15 - They can help with, moving things from one side of the farm to another.

11:19 - So our ox here rust, is now retired.

11:22 - He's about ten years old,

11:23 - but he's been here since he was six weeks and trained entirely by our farm staff.

11:27 - And he earned the title of ox at four years old, when oxen reached

11:31 - both mental and physical maturity

11:33 - to earn that title and then contribute to the daily labor of the farm.

11:37 - So it's very important.

11:38 - We also have two horses.

11:40 - Toby is a draft horse, so think of him like your pickup truck.

11:43 - So he's still designed for work?

11:45 - Kind of like a Clydesdales designed for work or a draft horse is a workhorse.

11:49 - He can do a little bit of lighter work.

11:51 - So where you might have rust to pull the plow,

11:53 - Toby can come through and pull the hair out,

11:55 - which is like a big rake to help prep the field for planting.

11:58 - He can also have a cart or a buggy and help move things around the farm.

12:02 - He's a little faster, but not as strong as are ox.

12:05 - And then we have Ben or Benson, who's our standard.

12:07 - Brant. He's actually retired out here with us.

12:10 - He's from the Standardbred Retirement Foundation,

12:12 - but he's an example of a riding horse from the 18th century.

12:15 - So think of him like your car or your convertible.

12:18 - He's the fancy way or the practical way to get you to town.

12:21 - So he can pull a cart or carriage as well.

12:23 - But he's also a riding horse.

12:25 - So our different animals represent what you would see on an 18th century farm.

12:29 - So farmers took great care of their animals as much as they could,

12:32 - because it is a source of food for them and a source of labor.

12:36 - So there's a lot of different tasks that go into caring for the animals.

12:40 - So daily care for our chickens and our ducks, we're watching them.

12:45 - We're monitoring. We're pulling eggs.

12:47 - We're feeding them for our sheep.

12:49 - They free range, so they feed themselves.

12:52 - In the 18th century, our birds would be free ranging as well.

12:55 - For our horses, they're, a little bit more labor intensive to care for.

13:01 - And so oxen were the primary animal used in this area

13:03 - kind of early 18th century until you're transitioning to horses.

13:07 - Horses, they get daily groomed.

13:09 - They get monitored. They have their feet picked.

13:12 - Ours do not wear horseshoes.

13:13 - But in the 18th century, that would be an important part of a blacksmith

13:17 - or a farrier, is to do horseshoes for the horses and then rust.

13:21 - Our ox requires daily grooming.

13:23 - We work with him,

13:25 - get him suited up in his yoke and his breeches so that he can pull,

13:28 - but he also is easier to care for in terms of feeding.

13:32 - He likes hay and dried grass, so he doesn't need any supplements.

13:36 - Grains like a horse would need.

13:38 - And for the most part, all of this food that's being provided to the animals

13:42 - comes from the farm itself.

13:43 - You're allowed them to graze.

13:45 - You're going to have a hayfield where you're producing

13:47 - your own hay to feed your animals or any extra grains that you have.

13:51 - It's all coming from the farm.

13:52 - You're not going to go to a pet store and buy feed for them, but in return are

13:57 - getting food and labor and raw materials like rule out of all these animals.

14:02 - So the farming in the 18th century was essential to just daily life.

14:06 - Everything revolved around it.

14:09 - The skill of the

14:10 - housewife was she was essential keeping the family healthy.

14:14 - I often wondered to myself what happened if you were just bad at it.

14:18 - Did your family suffer all kinds of ailments that you

14:22 - then had to try and treat in your own expert way?

14:28 - All the food

14:29 - that the family would eat would be grown in the garden.

14:33 - It was a responsibility of the housewife.

14:35 - The children and any,

14:38 - you know, young women on the site to maintain the garden, to feed it.

14:43 - Those of vegetables are what is going to keep your family healthy.

14:47 - They would grow beans and peas, many different varieties.

14:51 - Some were eating fresh, early in the season.

14:54 - Some were later season ones. Also.

14:56 - Greens, leafy greens, lettuce, spinach.

14:59 - We've grown both of those, under. Whoops.

15:03 - To protect them from cold weather.

15:05 - Beets.

15:07 - We grow several kinds of squash.

15:10 - Our gardener focuses on heritage varieties, so that often

15:14 - variety is which visitors are not familiar with.

15:18 - The squash they grew was again a vegetable,

15:21 - which would be stored, for use in the winter.

15:24 - They didn't eat summer squash, so no zucchini, no sweet peppers,

15:29 - a lot of root crops, which they would preserve in a root cellar.

15:33 - So think of carrots, potatoes.

15:36 - Salsify, which is,

15:38 - root vegetable, a bit like a carrot.

15:41 - Parsnips again, a vegetable that most people are not familiar with.

15:46 - So your harvesting them on a seasonal basis throughout the year.

15:50 - But as you're doing so you're saving seed and you're also preserving the food

15:56 - because in the winter months, there's not a lot growing in the garden.

16:00 - If you had money, you could also preserve your fruit with sugar,

16:04 - but obviously the sugar that they were using was imported.

16:07 - It was expensive.

16:09 - And the jam that they were making,

16:11 - was very high in sugar content because the sugar was a preservative.

16:15 - It's not just like the the low fruit spreads we have today, which needs

16:19 - to be constantly refrigerated and heated within, eaten within a month of opening.

16:23 - The idea was to preserve it so you could use it later

16:27 - in the year as pie filling and of course, pickling.

16:30 - Vinegar is easy to make.

16:32 - It's cheap.

16:33 - And you can prove they preserved almost anything they would preserve.

16:38 - Peaches, melons, all the regular vegetables we might care to think of.

16:43 - The purpose of the spring house is to preserve food.

16:47 - The temperature in there is, does not fluctuate very much throughout the year.

16:53 - Its average temperature is about the low 50s.

16:55 - So it feels cool in summer and quite balmy in the winter.

17:00 - There is a central platform,

17:03 - and round it there is a trough in which water flows.

17:08 - There is a spring that actually oozes out of the back wall.

17:12 - The water around here has a lot of iron in it.

17:15 - So this spring has kind of stained the back wall

17:18 - orange, in the water.

17:21 - Big crocks in which you could place food

17:24 - and obviously place a lid on top, and that will keep them cool.

17:28 - There are also wooden shells built into the stone walls

17:32 - on which you could place goods as well.

17:34 - The spring house is, built into the hillside,

17:38 - so that is really what keeps it cool.

17:42 - The fact that it's, semi subterranean.

17:47 - Our spring house has a working area out the front,

17:50 - which we call the summer kitchen.

17:52 - There were some jobs that you'd want to do outside,

17:56 - like rendering fats, either for candles or for soap.

18:00 - Making.

18:01 - Making soap.

18:02 - Jobs which were dirty, smelly and involved.

18:05 - You know, boiling something over a fire for a long period of time.

18:10 - So it's a separate work area that we can use.

18:15 - Moving.

18:20 - In. And.

18:28 - The well here on the farm is over 300 years old.

18:30 - It actually predates, the room that we're sitting in.

18:34 - So it was back in probably the late 1600s.

18:37 - To the well is a source of water.

18:39 - There's several springs and Ridley Creek as well run

18:43 - that runs along the side of the house.

18:44 - So there's multiple fresh water.

18:46 - The well sweep helps the farmer kind of through this,

18:50 - system of weights and balance. So think of it like a simple machine.

18:53 - There's a weight on the end.

18:54 - So when you pull the bucket or descend the bucket into the well,

18:59 - the back of the well sweep in the weight, it goes up kind of like a seesaw.

19:02 - And then when you're pulling that

19:03 - heavy bucket up from the well, that's going to help you.

19:06 - So you're just guiding it up

19:07 - and the weight on the back is pulling that bucket down.

19:10 - So again, like a seesaw as that heavy bucket goes up,

19:13 - the weight in the back goes down

19:14 - and it helps that you're not pulling a very heavy bucket up from the bottom

19:18 - by yourself.

19:19 - It's it's a counter. It's a counterbalance in weight.

19:21 - So it's helping you perform a task.

19:28 - To help transfer water around the farm, we have yoke in buckets.

19:31 - So we have people yoke and an animal yoke.

19:33 - The people who would be actually made by the farmer.

19:36 - It's constructed out of wood.

19:37 - It sits on your shoulders and adds two ropes that hang down.

19:41 - And you're going to hook buckets on that.

19:42 - So think of it like a backpack.

19:44 - It's balanced for you, and it's going to help you do the job that you need to.

19:47 - It's not the same type of water

19:49 - that you'd fill a water bottle and drink with though.

19:51 - It's not safe to drink.

19:53 - In the 18th century,

19:54 - they didn't know about germs and bacteria in the same way that we perceive it.

19:58 - But they knew that if you're drinking directly from the well,

20:01 - you could have an upset stomach or internal discomfort.

20:05 - So in order to make the water safe to drink, you're going to boil it

20:08 - and then you can have tea, coffee, drinking chocolate.

20:12 - The primary beverage in the 18th century didn't include alcohol.

20:15 - So small beer, hard cider, a variety of liquor as well.

20:20 - The women of the house with the brewers.

20:22 - So as, Sarah said, small beer was the common drink.

20:26 - You'd start your morning with small beer.

20:28 - Beer was nutritious.

20:31 - And it was also homemade.

20:33 - Coffee, of course, was imported.

20:35 - So it was tea. They were expensive luxury drinks.

20:38 - And if you were a farmer, you might regard them as empty calories.

20:43 - You need the calories.

20:44 - It's a practical beverage.

20:46 - And then it's it, eliminates kind of

20:49 - or eliminates as much as possible bacteria.

20:52 - And anything that would be unsavory in what you're drinking.

21:00 - A blacksmith May 18th century

21:02 - was a profession, but you also had farmers who would have.

21:06 - You generally would have a forge or would know how to do some basic skills.

21:10 - I equate it to having an adult at home that knows how to change a light bulb,

21:13 - or do some basic plumbing before you have to call a plumber or an electrician.

21:17 - Blacksmithing.

21:17 - There's a forge and the firebox, and you have coals in there,

21:22 - and it's important to heat up as much as possible.

21:24 - That's how you're going to be able

21:25 - to manipulate the iron to bend it, as it needs to get very hot turns red.

21:30 - And then you're going to be using an anvil, a hammer and an anvil or a tool

21:33 - to manipulate that iron while it's quite hot.

21:36 - And there's a variety of different tools and materials

21:39 - and ways to do that, to create the right shape that you want,

21:43 - or the correct tool and implement to do that.

21:46 - There is also a blower.

21:48 - And so that's putting air into the firebox that's creating oxygen

21:54 - to keep the fire lit as well as those coals nice and hot.

21:57 - That's the ultimate goal, is you want very hot coals, so you can maintain the heat

22:02 - to keep your iron warm and continue continual heating and reheating.

22:06 - Your farmer is going to be able to do very basic things.

22:08 - Probably fix a plow

22:10 - that's going to be quite important, create nails, hinges, as well as a variety

22:14 - of cooking utensils as well, or implements or tools around the farm.

22:18 - Hooks as hooks.

22:20 - So kind of your, your basic things that a everyday farm would need.

22:24 - A farmer would be able to blacksmith on his own property.

22:28 - So the kitchen crane here would have been made by a professional blacksmith.

22:32 - That was a piece of an investment.

22:35 - And fitting it and balancing it is tricky.

22:38 - The chains would probably been

22:41 - bought from a blacksmith, but we have a lot of hooks.

22:44 - That our blacksmiths still make today.

22:46 - So they are very useful when you're trying to regulate the temperature,

22:50 - which you're cooking a dish so you can extend.

22:53 - You see this one here, the little stoke on the end.

22:55 - I wanted a pot to be close to, the flame to bring, to boil.

22:58 - If you want to raise it up, it's effectively on low heat.

23:03 - So that's what we use them for.

23:04 - Again, most of the implements in here, would it be made by professional?

23:10 - Probably not made on the farm behind me.

23:12 - There is a long, a a skillet with very long legs.

23:16 - That's a spider.

23:18 - It has a long handle, so you're not too close to fire.

23:21 - And the long legs mean that you can place it over a fire.

23:24 - When farmers were clearing, land to farm.

23:29 - Obviously, clearing land is very labor intensive,

23:33 - but even if your farm is several generations old, you would still have

23:37 - what they call a wooded lot.

23:39 - That wood was essential

23:42 - for repairing things, for making tools and for the fires.

23:47 - They consumed an enormous amount of wood over the course of the year.

23:52 - I mean, we only have one fire burning here,

23:55 - and that's not every day we get through a lot of wood.

24:00 - So the type of wood you burn does matter.

24:03 - We burn whatever we get.

24:06 - Basically, whatever tree falls down on the park.

24:09 - But if you were, managing a house

24:14 - like this, you would be quite selective about what you would burn.

24:17 - And depending on what you need it for.

24:19 - So, for example, if you're wanting to a hot fire

24:22 - because you'd be doing baking or roasting, you would need more than you would need

24:26 - if you were just needing to render some fat.

24:28 - You just need a low fire for that.

24:30 - But wood was all gathered on the property.

24:33 - It would be, chopped down with an ax, sawn up splits.

24:39 - That would be generally a job

24:41 - that would be done by the male members of the family.

24:45 - The hearth we're sitting on here is, this is an extended hearth,

24:50 - which makes the job of the cook much easier.

24:52 - You've got a larger surface area to cook on, so I could make that fire for myself.

24:58 - Spider. Anywhere.

25:00 - I found it really anywhere convenient.

25:02 - On the stone hearth, we have Dutch ovens we use.

25:05 - And again, if you're a camper, you might be familiar with those.

25:09 - Those are an adaptation of the first Dutch ovens,

25:13 - which were cast in England in the early 18th century.

25:17 - In North America, the adapt to the style

25:20 - to suit, baking over a wood fire.

25:24 - So again, we take the coals from the bottom of the fire,

25:27 - make a kind of nest on the stone surface.

25:30 - You place your Dutch oven on top, place whatever you're cooking inside it,

25:35 - and then you put on the lid and you cover the lid with, coals as well.

25:40 - We also have a toaster, which I believe is hanging up behind me as a toaster.

25:45 - So, you would cook it round on one side of the bread was toasted?

25:51 - We do use that, we also have a grid iron.

25:54 - So the grid on worked like a modern grill.

25:56 - And it's also the origin of,

25:59 - you know, the term that you might use to describe the football field.

26:02 - Because it has lots of parallel bars on it, various,

26:06 - frying pans hanging over the fire here.

26:09 - We have a salamander that's hanging up there at the moment.

26:13 - Salamanders were all salamanders actually made

26:16 - with a coil of iron to produce a plate about the size of your hand.

26:21 - And the idea is you heat it up into the in the fire until it is red hot.

26:25 - And you can use that to broil dishes so, you know, cheese on toast

26:30 - will make your toast in the toaster cheese on top of your bread.

26:34 - And you could, grill it or broil it with your salamander.

26:38 - We have a selection of hose and things behind me which to talk to.

26:42 - Slide the bread on.

26:44 - Baking was a major enterprise.

26:46 - There will be one day devoted to it, because not only would you be baking

26:51 - bread, but you would also try and do all your weeks baking ahead of time.

26:55 - So that will be a whole day devoted to baking.

26:58 - We had a professional group here

27:00 - yesterday, so I made two kinds of fresh farmhouse cheese.

27:04 - I baked two kinds of bread.

27:06 - One is a maslin loaf, which is a very heavy, hearty bread.

27:11 - The other, however, is French bread. Really?

27:14 - Fine weeks and bread, made with bolted flour,

27:18 - which means they bolted out the wheat germ, and the wheat bran.

27:22 - And that's what makes it white.

27:24 - We also have a pie is called a Cheshire pork

27:28 - pie for, see, nothing to do with the ocean.

27:31 - It just refers. The fact is made with salted pork.

27:34 - I also behind me have another dish of stewed peas and lettuce.

27:38 - I've been trying to warm that up in front of the fire.

27:41 - The other is a pudding.

27:42 - A classic boiled pudding boiled in a pudding cloth over the fire.

27:47 - And that is a very fancy meal.

27:51 - It has got dried fruit, and it candied citron, candied orange spices.

27:56 - Over here I have a little pipkin, which I'm warming up.

27:58 - The sauce that was served with it.

28:01 - That would have been a real treat.

28:03 - The food that we have on the table today was all made

28:06 - using, 18th century receipts.

28:09 - It was cookbooks were widely available to those who were literate.

28:14 - They had no concept of plagiarism.

28:16 - So you can find one receipt or recipe

28:19 - repeated in several books over the course of like 70 or 80 years.

28:23 - But those are the books we use.

28:25 - The thing to remember is that the food that we cook here

28:28 - is the kind of food that might have been eaten by the family,

28:31 - but the kind of cooking that we do

28:34 - does vary enormously, depending not only on the season, but,

28:39 - the ability and the, the fancy of the cook.

28:42 - This is an actual working farm.

28:44 - So while we are in period attire, 18th century period attire,

28:47 - when people come out here, we are here a year round, seven days a week.

28:51 - Our crops are here, our animals are here, we're maintaining the property.

28:56 - So it is a real working farm.

28:57 - And everyone gets to see the 18th century component of that.

29:00 - But we do that while people live here and while people are not here.

29:03 - So I think that's fascinating that it's a fully functioning working farm out here.

29:08 - We get so many visitors that come by and we say, how did you find us?

29:12 - And they go, oh, we live on the outskirts of the park.

29:14 - And we've been driving through and we just didn't know what was down here.

29:18 - And they are always enchanted and they discover it's.


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