1/12^th Scale Georgian Kitchen Food

By the 18th Century cooking in wealthier households had become more sophisticated and while the bulk of dishes were still cooked on open fires or spit roasted, the introduction of the metal grate and later in the century metal hobs, which were built into fireplaces, made boiling and stewing easier, separate small brick built ranges burning charcoal were used to cook sauces and fried dishes and by the third quarter of the century the very first simple kitchen ranges with a cast iron oven on one side and a boiler for heating water on the other were the cutting edge of kitchen technology.  The cast iron oven with the brick inner lining gave more control over baking and french influences meant that what were termed 'made up' dishes now entered English cuisine.

The introduction of the pudding cloth for boiled puddings, both sweet and savoury, was a great step forward and very popular, there was also the introduction of the wooden hoop for cake baking, which made possible the use of a softer, more liquid mix for cakes. Copper pans had replaced the clay cooking pots  and black forged iron skillets and fire place cauldrons on the new kitchen ranges. Wooden trenchers were no longer used, pewter and silver being the main serving and eating dishes but by the end of the century the pewter and sometime even the silver was being replaced by the new china dinner and tea services. Chinese porcelain had started the trend, being the ultimate status symbol for the serving of tea from the middle of the 17th Century. By 1800 no family with any aspersions to gentility or the upper classes was without its full china service, sometimes specially commissioned in English or French porcelain.