Containers: Cooking Containers: Wood

One of the earliest materials adapted to kitchen use, wood has been whittled, carved, and turned by foot- or water-powered lathes. For centuries, settlers in various parts of America have valued wood’s relative sturdiness, ease of home production and repair, versatility, and low cost, and it was so widely used that historians refer to the “American Wooden Age.” They reason that without the availability of wood in American forests, those who explored and settled remote territories could not otherwise have survived, since they could not have carried all their necessities.