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Spotsylvania County family reenacts 18th-century cooking customs over an open hearth Date published: 7/22/2008
By CATHY DYSON Mark Taylor and his children slaved over an open hearth for hours, showing how food was cooked in the 1770s when people couldn't zip open a frozen dinner and zap it in the microwave. Even after guests left the steamy Kenmore kitchen, the Taylors acted like they were still in another era. Sara, 19, and Joshua, 15, continued to banter in Old English as they scrubbed iron cookware and emptied sea salt that had been displayed in an oyster shell. The two called out their characters' names and spoke just as they had when Joshua explained earlier how to debone a chicken. "Do you wish me to do that?" he asked his sister. "No, I've already begun," she answered, reaching for a bowl she said "was as clean as the soul of an infant." The Taylors' research on 18th-century customs often spills over into their modern conversations. "We don't lapse into our characters. I think we just lapse into proper English," Sara said. "It's done wonders for our language skills." The family, which includes 11-year-old Deborah, became interested Their art is called first-person 18th-century historic interpretation, said Susan Bailey, an executive assistant at Kenmore, who helped start the program. Participants aren't given a script, but they are required to research a generic character--such as an indentured servant from Scotland--and find out about his life. Then, the young re-enactors come up with a name and take on the persona, with all the 18th-century trappings. The Taylors are particularly good at it, Bailey said. "You can give them the seed of an idea, and it blooms in their mind," she said. "I love to stand back and watch them. It's phenomenal." The Taylors do most of their re-enacting--which always includes cooking--in Kenmore's kitchen, a separate building outside the 1770s Fredericksburg mansion, which was home to George Washington's sister, Betty, and her husband, Fielding Lewis. About a dozen times a year, they rustle up squirrel stew or meat pies, carrot pudding or onion soup. They rarely cook the same recipe, a word that, in Washington's time, was pronounced like receipt, without the "t." "We get bored ever so quickly," Sara said.
Date published: 7/22/2008
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