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By Root 412 0

period in the South; from it, the cook, solo or in conjunction with the mistress of the house, fed the master’s family and often oversaw the feeding of all on the plantation. At some of the loftier plantations there could be twenty or more guests to dinner every evening. By the early eighteenth century, it had become custom in the South for the kitchens at plantation houses to be placed in a building that was separate from the main house. John Michael Vlach, a specialist in the architecture of the Southern plantation, suggests that “the detached kitchen was an important emblem of hardening social boundaries and the everyday society created by slaveholders that increasingly demanded clearer definitions of status, position, and authority.” Other reasons were more practical. If the kitchen was removed from the house, any kitchen fire would not endanger the Big House complex.

The Big House kitchens were the epicenter of food preparation on the plantation. They were equipped with massive hearths, complete with turning spits and an array of pots and pans and the people to tend them. Mariah Robinson, who must have had intimate knowledge of hearth cooking, recalled these kitchens in the 1930s WPA slave narratives:

Dere wuzn’t any stoves long slavery times. An de chimb-leys wuz made special to cook an’warm by dem. Dey built dem out of rock or stick an’dirt. Ledges wuz lef’ on each side an’ a long heavy green pole wuz put ‘cross from one ledge to another. Dis wuz high up in the chimbley to keep it from burning in de flames. On dis rod wuz hooks and chains to hang pots an’ things to cook with. Dey call dese pot hooks, pot hangers, pot claws, and crooks. Dey wuz hung at different lengths so as to cook hot or jes warm. Effen dey wuzn’t careful, dis long log would burn through an’ spill everything an’ bend or break de cooking vessels. Sometimes dey would burn a person when dey spilled.

Some of the pots and kettles had legs an’ de skillets an’ sauce pans had slim legs, so dat day could be placed wid deir food on little beds of coals which had been raked to one side of the hearth. Dere was a trivet to set skillets and pots on over the coals. Dese trivets had [three] legs, some shot to put de pot right on de fire to cook quick, an’ some had long legs so dat de food would jes keep warm and not cook much.

The hearth cooking that went on in these kitchens was an arduous endeavor punctuated by lifting heavy cast-iron pots and spiders, bending and arranging and maintaining flame levels, and hauling buckets of ash and used charcoal. In addition, there was always the omnipresent fear that the women’s long skirts would sweep up a spark and catch fire. All this was accomplished under the watchful eye of the mistress, who, on any plantation of size, did none of the heavy lifting.

Usually, this world was presided over by a slave cook, who was under the direction of the mistress and in charge of all food preparation. The Big House slave cook was a trusted individual who was given the allowance of ingredients for the meals to prepare and made responsible not only for their preparation but also for overseeing the folks required to do it. The role was one of favor, as house servants occasionally had access to more food. However, the position of Big House cook as one to be envied was not always the case, as remembered by Harriet Jacobs. She recalled the eagle eye with which her mistress, the dyspeptic and aptly named Mrs. Flint, watched over her provisions. The raw materials that were allotted to her grandmother for the preparations of the house hold’s food were “weighed out by the pound and ounce, three times a day. I can assure you she gave them no chance to eat wheatbread from her flour barrel. She knew how many biscuits a quart of flour would make, and exactly what size they ought to be.” Jacobs reminded that Mrs. Flint would “station herself in the kitchen and wait till [the meal] was dished, and then spit in all the kettles and pans that had been used for cooking. She did this to prevent the cook and her children from eking out their meager