Hearth Cookery

Hearth cookery refers to the cooking and baking performed directly over or adjacent to a kitchen fire. It has played a major role in human existence for millennia. Early people developed the skills for managing the heat of fire, embers, and ash and thereby widened their scope of edible foods. Simple mastering of the uses of clay, stone, wood, and bone expanded the repertoire—improved the batterie de cuisine—and subsequent growth of civilizations and cultures diversified hearth cookery further still. During this long span of years the basic processes of boiling, frying, grilling, roasting, toasting, and baking changed surprisingly little.