Growing up, our family had a wood cookstove in the basement and sometimes Mom would fire it up to cook breakfast on it on chilly mornings. She also used it to burn basement trash and to singe the fuzz from freshly plucked chickens. So a wood stove was not new to me, but cooking on it was. There are tricks to learn in order to not permanently weld food to the bottom of a saucepan and to get a loaf of bread baked properly. There is no setting a burner temperature or maintaining an even temp in the oven - the fire requires constant attention to keep it in the range of a usable temp (cakes were not even worth considering). But as I got better at it, I really appreciated the fact that I could have move pots around all over the stove top to heat them up quickly, keep them gently simmering or just keep their contents warm. And that I could manage that small firebox using assorting kinds and sizes of wood to create the level and type of heat I wanted.
My stove also had a water tank on the side which I kept full of water so that when the stove was running we could draw out warm or even hot water. At the time I did not have running water in the house so keeping the tank full by hauling in buckets from the outside pump meant having a supply of water close at hand – even when the stove was not running. In the winter, it was the primary source of water for washing dishes.
One of my favorite ways to cook on the wood stove was stir-frying. I would remove one of the lids and settle the wok right in the opening over a hot fire. Veggies cooked perfectly in that fire heated wok I also learned to make my first salves on the woodstove. The back of the stove is the perfect place to extract herbs into oils to use as the base for a salve. (I use a small crockpot now – it is not the same.) Comfrey oil was the first one I made with the help of a wild woman I worked with named Rebecca. And I lespecially loved the warming ovens over the stove. I could warm up bread for supper, keep dishes warm and they were wonderful places to place dough for rising.
Cooking a Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner for a pile of relatives was challenging, but to
them it was almost miraculous. And sledding parties were the best when a pot of soup, hot cider or hot chocolate was available everytime we took a break to come in and warm up. Not to mention hanging scarves, mittens and even clothes on or around the stove for warming and drying them and everyone's boots would be lined up along the warm back of the stove.
For years all I had was the cook stove, a two burner hot plate and a toaster oven (later replaced with a convection version). I used the cookstove a lot in the fall and spring when heating it up was just enough to keep us warm without using the regular woodstove. And in the winter when it was really cold, we sometimes needed both running to keep the house warm. Over time though, it was easier to use the hot plate and save the time of starting up the stove and when we put the basement in and replaced our wood burner with a furnace, the cook stove gradually stopped being used except as a place to pile things.
Finally after nearly 25 years, we bought a regular stove and we took out the cook stove. I only agreed as long as husband Dave promised to build me a summer kitchen so I could set it back up and at least use it for canning, preserving, drying and other such homesteading activities. My poor stove still sits in the garden shed, awaiting a resurrection that I fear will never come. But on these cold January days, keeping a slow fire going all day with a kettle of hot water resting at the back ready to make a cup of tea and perhaps a stew bubbling thickly for supper scenting the air – I really miss my wood stove.
When I went to snap these few pictures on this near zero day I wanted to clean her up a bit first but it was just too cold. So she looks kind of sad and dirty. Note the warming ovens on the top and the water resorvoir on the side. The iron pots were retired with the stove.
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