Thursday, December 8, 2016

Tin Kitchen, Tin Baker or Reflecting Oven

Below is an excerpt from The Journal of the Franklin Institute ©1833 about a Tin Kitchen Patent. In the List of Patents for Inventions and designs, issued by the United States, ©1847 we find the patent was given on June 14, 1832.

For an improvement in the Tin Kitchen; George Richardson, South Reading, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, June 14.
This, we are informed, is made like the ordinary tin kitchen, excepting that it is nearly of a square form, with the sides, bottom and back, in entire pieces, to exclude the external airj there, however, is to be a close fitting lid on the top, or in the back, notwithstanding its entire unity. A shelf, or shelves, may be placed on ledges within, or there may be a spit crossing it in the usual way. The tin case, and also the separate peices, are to be so formed and placed as to reflect the heat where it is most wanted.
In what part the claim to a patent resides, we are not informed.

In another source we find in History of Jay, Franklin County, Maine, by Benjamin F. Lawrence ©1912:
The Thanksgiving turkey was suspended by a string from the mantel-piece before the fire, with a dripping-pan on the hearth underneath. Later on came the tin-baker and tin-kitchen, which greatly facilitated the means of cooking and aided the housewife in household duties. And at a still later day earthenware and crockery-ware displaced the wooden vessels, the wooden bowls and spoons of the early settlers and even the pewter platters, spoons and mugs of the better class were put aside as relics by the use of more modern dishes.

And for some further definition we find in The Journal of Home economics, Vol. 12 ©1920 this definition:
The tin kitchen was a light utensil—of tin, as the name indicates; closed on all sides but that facing the fire; the top being curved or slanted downward and the bottom curved or slanted reversely. Whatever was to be baked was placed on a shallow pan supported within the tinkitchen, and thus received direct heat from the hearth fire and reflected heat from the utensil. The collapsible aluminum reflector used today by campers is derived from the old-fashioned tin kitchen and works on exactly the same principles.

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