WBRM Open Hearth Cooking Class

19 Apr Posted by his4ever

It was a warm breezy day last month, when I got the opportunity to attend an “Open Hearth Cooking Class” put on by West Baton Rouge Parish Museum. The purpose of this class was to teach other people so that they could see how fun it is to cook over an open hearth (also so they might find how interested they are in volunteering to dress up in period costume and cook the ole’ fashioned way!).

When I walked in I was greeted by the smell of bean soup cooking, White Bean Soup to be more exact! The class began with a brief introduction by Miss Jeannie and then Miss Gayle continued to start the work she had started before we arrived. It takes a while to get the fire going right and the bean soup would have cooked beyond the time we were there if she had not started it earlier.

We all got to participate. It was quite fun! I chopped up some onions for the greens. Irony of it is, I hate onions, so it was quite ironic I volunteered to chop up those little buggers.

Miss Gayle also made Corn Pone (Ash cake), Molasses cake, Sweet potatoes, and she heated up some sausage on the crane. I’ll let the rest of the images speak about my wonderful experience. If you ever get the chance, you should hop on over to West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen to see these women at work.... who knows, I might be there someday! :D

I should finish by saying, that we got to try the food we helped prepare. It was delicious. I am now trying to talk my husband into building an open hearth of some sort in our backyard, because there is no way to produce the flavor this food had in the kitchen. Thank you West Baton Rouge Museum, Miss Jeannie, and Miss Gayle!