Peeks Creek
A black iron pot hangs from a crane in the fireplace, and about the hearth sit the trivets and griddles, pothooks and spiders of his upbringing.
They go back to a time when Lawrence Wood’s great-great-grandmother used them in her baking, boiling and frying over an open fire.
And now, 140 years later, they are still being used.
Wood, a 41-year-old mountain man with an affinity for the old ways, is keeping the pioneer past alive with his fireplace cooking. He likes nothing better than preparing a meal on the hearth in the heirloom iron pots and skillets used by his great-great-grandmother.
“If I had the time for it,” he said, “I’d do all my cooking on the hearth. Somehow food seems to taste better when cooked over an open fire.”
He lives, with his 81-year-old father here in the hills beyond Franklin. Except on his days off from his job at Tate’s Supermarket up in Highlands, he hardly ever gets to cook on the hearth. But sometimes, when he comes in from work, he will take the time to bake a pone of cornbread in the fireplace.
“I cook most of our meals on the electric stove when I’m working,” he said. “But on my days off, if I don’t have to go some place, I’ll cook on the fireplace. I’ve been cooking for the two of us for sixteen years, ever since my mother died.”
“But I learned to cook when I was quite small. As a matter of fact, I was just a little bit over three years old when Mama started me out cooking.”
“The first thing I really remember cooking was parsnips. I cooked them on the fireplace. Boiled them in an iron pot swung from a pot hanger over the fire. When they got tender, I took them out and peeled them, then sliced them and rolled then in cornmeal and fried them. Very few people like parsnips, but I could almost eat them three times a day.”
—John Parris – Mountain Cooking
Granny said she can remember visiting someone in Peachtree when she was a small girl that still cooked on the hearth. She said she thought she went to visit the old lady with her Grandpa Truett. She can’t remember what they ate, but she said the old lady cooked the meal right there on the hearth.
I can’t imagine how much work it was to cook a full meal over an open fire. That had to take some real talent and knowledge. I would think folks were tickled to death when they finally got to cook on a wood burning cookstove. Easier to cook more things at once and having it up off the floor had to be wonderful too.
My Granny Gazzie had an electric stove when I was growing up, but right beside it she had her wood cookstove and she still used it for certain things.
I’d like to try Mr. Wood’s method of cooking parsnips. I like them okay, but the girls just love them!
One time I interviewed a man who grew up in Peachtree and he said when he was a boy his parents always grew parsnips. Granny and Pap never grew them and I don’t think their parents did either. At least I never heard them talk about it if they did.
Last night’s video: Planting Old-Time Multiplying Onions & Loving the Seasons of Appalachia.
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I grew up in Raleigh, about a mile from Capitol Square. The house we lived in was built in 1910-11 and was not inside the ‘city’ at the time. It was built by a dairyman who kept and milked cows. It had no plumbing or heating other than fireplaces (5). At some point, gas pipes were added and gas lamps hung in a couple of rooms. Later, before my family moved in, cold water plumbing for the kitchen and bathrooms were added as was electricity. It was a frame house with unpainted, weathered, wood siding and no insulation. It was not uncommon in the coldest weather for water in a glass at bedside to freeze. My mother had a kerosene fired cook stove with 4 eyes and an oven. I was about 12 or 13 when a Siegler oil heater was installed in the dining room. Until then, we heated with coal in the fireplace, usually just one room except for holidays or when we expected company. Then we lit a fire in the front room. At about the same time time a water heater was added and hot water piped to the bathrooms and kitchen. We heated pots and kettles on the stove for baths. We got a gas range in the kitchen, too. The only cooking I can remember us doing over a fire was popcorn in a shaker-pan and Idaho potatoes in the ashes and on rare occasions, roasted marshmallows.
Tipper’s mother and I are the same age.
We loved when Mom fixed parsnips. We ate them like candy. Mom parboiled them in salt water until just tender. Then she would roll them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper and fry them in bacon grease. No matter how many she fried there never seemed to be enough.
It’s been a long time since I’ve have parsnips but this is the perfect time of the year and I think I’ll fix me some soon. Thanks for the memory
I just want to let everyone know, I have just received an email from one of our fellow members. It was from Gene in Daytona, Florida, he and his family seem to have safety made it through the hurricane. He has been without power or internet since Thursday, but got it back last night. He ask for us to keep praying for him.
Great news!
My sister-in-law is between Port Charlotte and Englewood where the storm hit. She is safe and suffered no significant damage, but is still without power. As badly as Charlotte County was hit, I doubt she will get electricity for good while. Today is her birthday, 76.
Robert-so glad she is okay!!
When I was young my grandma had a wood cook stove. I loved the smells of the wood burning and the food she was cooking. At the top of the stove, it had a warmer that she kept leftover biscuits and you can bet if us grandkids were visiting, we would always check the stove and she would get them and give them to us and get out the jelly and we had a biscuit party!! She didn’t mind making more biscuits. I also remember her taking a huge cast iron skillet and with an old lid off a pot, she would pop popcorn for us on that stove. I don’t know how she kept it from scorching, but it was perfect every time!! I sure miss those times. They are precious memories. As for parsnips, I don’t remember ever eating them. If I did, I was too young to know what they were. They sound good if prepared like I read about today. Have a blessed day all!!
My mother-in-law fixed parsnips several times a year boiled and dripping in butter – very tasty. I’m sure curious about the recipe and will get some parsnips next time I go to the store. I also read another recipe recently that said eggplant skin had tons of nutrients and was good helped to stave off memory loss. I’m sure going to get some and make a parmesan but will not be removing the skin – if I can remember it. LOL
I look at a lot of real estate listings, dreaming of a farmstead. The old pre-1960 houses attract me the most. Through time I have started noticing the chimneys, or chimbleys. One can tell by the size whether they are fireplaces or flues for stoves. There were very few houses built, it seems, in the 40’s or 50’s but those that were, in the countryside anyway, still had flues for stoves. From 1960 on those flues became a thing of the past, especially with the FHA loan brick ranches.
In older houses, those flues have often been covered over and/or incorporated into a closet. If on the outside wall, many of them have been taken down to the eaves and roofed over, a mute testimony of history. Oddly, fireplace chimneys are typically taller than a stove flue because they need to extend above the roofline to draw. Stove flues seem not to need that for some reason(s) I don’t understand.
I can just barely remember my Grandmothers old wood burning stove but I’m thankful I can remember it. I definitely think of how strong and wise my Grandmothers were when they raised their children cooking without electric stoves, plumbing in the house, etc., and yet they did a superb job. Around 1977, my parents bought a pop-up camper and Mother took her old cast iron cooking pot and skillet along to cook outside. She could cook delicious food in that old pot sitting it in the fire and putting hot coals on top of it.
I’ve seen old fireplace kitchens with the hooks and kettles hanging from them cooking food in Plimoth Plantation, which replicates the original settlement of the Plymouth Colony Massachusetts and in Williamsburg, Virginia too. I have never eaten parsnips but may just try some:)
I’ve never had parsnips, but am always up for trying foods I’ve not had before. My mom always told us kids you can’t say you don’t like foods you’ve never tried. We had to eat at least two to three bites of a new food. The first bite didn’t count because you have to get passed what the food looks like or was told it taste like. Sometimes the ugliest foods taste better than you ever thought it would.
When I had lived in WV, my hubby and I had a Buck Stove in our first home together. I loved it! It kept the house warm and I could put a big pot of beans, or chili or soups to cook on it all day long to have for our evening meal. I also always kept a big kettle on it to boil water to make hot drinks, but also to keep moisture in the air. I always wished we had one in our current home, but we don’t have the room for one, nor does our budget allow for how pricey they are now days. However, I’d highly recommend them to anyone building a new house. Yes, they are a lot of work having to haul in wood and coal (we burned coal along with wood when we had our Buck Stove), but the warmth and cooking ability out weighed cleaning up the ashes and hauling in wood.
It must have been in the 70s before my parents got an electric stove and I bet Mom hated getting used to it as she still cooked her beans on the pot belly stove in the living room. My aunt’s husband was in Germany while serving in the Army and left her alone to raise her house full of children on a coal stove. I can’t remember her ever having an electric stove when my two sisters and I would go spend the night with her three girls. She would fix a big breakfast that always included biscuits and gravy. She seldom ever ate with us and would say it was too hot to eat after standing over the stove. My cousin will cry for hours when we talk about the hard life her mom lived and how she never complained about keeping a fire going in the cookstove, pot belly stove, and the outside pit where she heated water from the creek to wash their clothes.
This blog frequently reminds me that we mostly read history or watch history without the understanding of what authenticity would be. When did cook stoves begin to replace hearth cooking? When did home canning in glass jars become possible? Of course there was no single year “when” but it was a progress from cities out to the backwoods, just as electricity, paved roads, the internet, etc were. (Actually still “are” in places!)
I never knew of anyone cooking on an hearth except in a living history demonstration at Rocky Mount, at one time the territorial capital of the Northwest Territory, near Johnson City, TN. It was an eye-opener. The art of it intrigues me, having several things – and likely parts of several meals – going at once (boiling, simmering, baking, frying, toasting) each with their own requirements of heat and timing. And along with the art goes the skill of making the fire, maintaining differing heats and even using the heated stones as the oven or warmer. At any big house, it took a crew of both inside and outside folks to set a full table.
It was because they could do cooking over an open fire that they could set out on a westward trek. They had the necessary skills and knew they did.
I wonder if our hardy ancestors would pity us as being helplessly dependent on things subject to failing. Reminds me of the Andy Griffith episode of when Aunt Bea came and Opie said he didn’t want her to go because, he said, “Where will she go? Who will take care of her? She can’t do anything. She needs us!”
parsnips are one of my favorite root veggies. about 7 or 8 years ago I started buying at a stand that not only grew but brought in their produce. so many things I had never eaten I decided to try 1 new thing every week. how I found parsnips. I have also cooked in a fireplace after 2 back to back hurricanes left me powerless. finally bought a generator. it was fun, but not for long term
I learned how to cook on a wood stove at Great Aint Genie’s house. Years later I bought my own wood cookstove and the new ones have a huge firebox so’s they not only cook your food but they heat the entire house. Of course these days they’re a might more expensive. Mine is so beautiful I have it in the great room right next to the kitchen and it’s my favorite appliance/furniture. The very best smoked sausages and biscuits I’ve ever eaten come from the oven of that stove. I bought the big water reservoir with it to heat water and to keep the air humidified. You can see a picture of my favorite thing in my house here https://stovesandmore.com/product/flame-view-wood-cook-stove/
That’s a beautiful stove! We use to have a Buck Stove in our house back in WV. I loved it and could set a kettle to boil water for hot drinks and a big pot to cook up a mess of beans, chili or soups. I never tried making cornbread on it, but my mom had told me if I got a cast iron with a lid I could. She cooked on a wood stove when she grew up so she knew how to cook on them like you do. Having a wood burning stove is the one thing I miss more most from our previous home. You sure are right about how much wood stoves have gone up in price. They are to pricey for my budget, plus I don’t have room for one in our current home. However, I sure would recommend them to folks building their new homes.
When my Grandmother Harris was alive, she and I would talk about any and everything. As a young fellow, I had fancied being a television reporter so I got a kick out of “interviewing” Mawmaw. One day I asked her all businesslike, “Mrs. Harris, what is the greatest invention of your lifetime?” She said well, I need to study on that a minute. A moment or two later she said REA (Rural Electrification Act). I asked why? She said because I didn’t have to get up at 4:00 every morning to get the [wood] stove ready/hot to cook breakfast! She said I could stay in that warm bed [piled high with homemade quilts] a little longer (they used no heat at night). With REA, rural folks suddenly had electric pumps for their wells – no more drawing water. They had hot water heaters – no more heating water on a wood stove, electric stoves and refrigeration. And let’s not forget the beloved deep freezer! Life was suddenly easier. I loved hearing Mawmaw talk about all the ways electricity had made her life easier. She especially loved her electric oven because it baked her cornbread so evenly, with no more hot-spots like a wood stove was apt to have. As she was just about to end her comments on the greatest thing or invention of her life she said, “of course, opening somebody’s chest up and working on their heart white it’s still a beatin’ is pretty amazing, too!” Yes ma’am, it is.
Randy to another Randy, I remember when my electric company – now Laurens Electric- was called REA. I will catch myself still calling it REA. The grandparents I mentioned in my earlier comment did have electricity, but they never had a pump in their well, so no running water or bathroom in their home, but they did have a refrigerator, an electric range, freezer and a single light bulb hung from ceiling by electrical cord with a pull string switch in each room. They never owned a TV and only had a small radio that I don’t remember being used. Comment about the quilts, even though we lived beside them, I would sometimes spend the night with them. If it was during the winter, you had better get fixed just like you wanted because after grandma covered you up with a stack of those home made quilts you couldn’t move,
My daddy liked to cook beans and such in an old cast iron pot hung from a hook in his fire place, just for old time sake. While it was not cooking at a fire place, my grandmother would cook her and granddaddy’s meals on a small two eye wood or coal heater with a flat top during the winter months using cast iron pots and frying pans. She would fry her dough for bread in a cast iron griddle pan. They only had a larger heater to heat their bedroom and this heater to heat the room they called the dinning room. They only stayed in these two rooms during the winter. She did have an electric range to use in the summertime. How many have seen these small heaters be so hot the sides and stove pipe would glow red? When coming in from the old outside you would stand by the heater and bake one side and then turn around to bake the other. The side not turned to the heater would still be cold in these old homes. The window panes would rattle when the wind blew and you could feed the chickens through the cracks in the floor. Can you image having to cook on a fire place or wood cookstove in the hot summertime?
Randy, I also remember cooking meals on a little, two-eye stove that we called a laundry heater. It had angle iron hooks coming out of the side where my Mom would put her flat irons to warm for ironing our clothes.
I just have to tell you how much I loved reading – you could feed the chickens through the cracks in the floor. Talk about descriptive, WOW. Back then houses smelled good from all the cooking and you knew what was for breakfast before getting out of bed!
Mary that is true about feeding the chickens. The old homes were not underpinned and some even had large rocks for the pillows instead of cement blocks. The floors were floored with planks and would have cracks between the planks.and were not subfloored and floored like now with 4×8 sheets of plywood or something similar, the reason for saying feed the chickens through the floor.. Also as I said earlier the glass window panes would rattle if the wind blew hard. I have heard my Daddy and others say it was not unusual to wake up in the mornings with a dusting of snow on the bed covers. If raining the chickens would be under the house and they would drop kernels of corn through the cracks in the floor to feed them.
I adore parsnips!! The most underrated root vegetable in my opinion. I will try cooking them this way, but usually I roast them in the oven with a little olive oil drizzle, salt & pepper. My grandma cooked on a woodstove in a vacation cabin they had in the mountains of Montana when I was a child back in the 1970’s. I wish I would have asked her to teach me how to use that….nothing better than bacon frying in the morning on the woodstove. God Bless you and your family Tipper, I just love your site.
Cooking over an open fire outdoors or on a fireplace hearth is certainly an art form. I enjoy preparing food that way. My grandmother had a modern kitchen with an electric stove and oven. Adjacent to that kitchen, she had a smaller one with a wood cook stove. She often chose to cook there and did all her canning on that wood stove. Food did seem to taste better when we ate in her old kitchen.
one of my biggest regrets is not buying my grandmother’s wood stove she had in her kitchen at the estate sale years ago. as a child I remember going by her house in the evening to carry firewood in for it and her fireplace ( her heat source). There was always leftover biscuits or a pie in the warmers on the top of the stove to look forward to.
Parsnips is one of the only vegetables I have never tasted. You have my interest peaked now and I will have to get some and try several different ways to prepare them. I did watch you two with your multiplying onions segment and have wondered about them myself. Another new one for me. There is a you tuber, by the name of Kent Rollins, that cooks a lot of things over an open fire. He has actually shown how to fix biscuits by putting the bottom of the pan, with the three legs, on the coals, puts the biscuits in and covers it with the lid that goes with that bottom. He then puts coals on the lid, with an edge, and cooks them that way. Never tried it, but it does look interesting.. Looking forward to another episode on Friday. God Bless
I learned to make some AWESOME coffee over the fire, from Ol’ Kent Rollins’ youtube channel. Do it just like he says & you will have thee best coffee. Use his method when our power goes out (we have a propane stove, just for that reason) or if we’re cooking over our fire pit. That coffee tastes great reheated, too, which is something. I can never reheat coffee from a coffee maker. It just tastes….ICK. That pan you are describing is a type of Dutch oven & you can cook all sorts of things using the method of putting the coals on the lid. That is how it is designed to be used.
I remember that my grandma and grandpa Karshner’s house had an electric stove and a massive wood stove in the kitchen. This was in the 70s. My dad said when he was growing up the wood stove was what they cooked with…the electric stove being a new appliance.
Funny how the old ways hang on.
When reading a passage in the Bible about someone coming to visit, and the host would kill whatever meat they were going to serve their unplanned company, and then the wife cooked up the meal from scratch – I think how that had to have been an all day project over an outside fire! It wasn’t like she took something out of the freezer, thawed it in the microwave and heated it on the stove with some canned vegetables, and then served their guests a meal within an hour! I often think about how the women cooked on a hearth 200 years ago with their long dresses on. I had read somewhere that it was common for the women to have burn patches in their skirt fabric, and some even died from their dresses catching on fire while cooking. Scary thought! How lucky your Mom was to get to see someone actually make food on the hearth fire, and then to eat something cooked that way, too. I have only had parsnips in a stew once, it is a vegetable I want to use more of in other dishes. I enjoyed this post, thank you!
Donna. : )