A Taste of History: Cooking at the Open Hearth

On Sunday, January 25, 2015, from 1pm to 4pm, Durand-Hedden House & Garden Association will present “A Taste of History: Cooking at the Open Hearth.” The program is designed to be educational, fun, and a wonderful afternoon for adults and children.

This year, Durand-Hedden welcomes a new cook skilled in 18th and 19th century foodways to our annual historic cooking program honoring late longtime trustee, Irene Kosinski. For over 20 years, Carlotta Defillo has demonstrated open hearth cooking with flair and dedication at Historic Richmondtown in Staten Island and she looks forward to working at our kitchen fire. Irene, a gifted educator and lover of living history, oversaw the restoration of Durand-Hedden’s beehive oven in 1981. She went on to establish our perpetually popular open hearth cooking program, which for thirty years has drawn visitors who are “hungry” for history. On the menu this year will be a chicken roasted in a tin reflector oven, crumpets fried on a griddle, tasty “cobblestones” and preserved foods from the fall harvest. Children will be able to try their hand at old-fashioned cooking chores like kneading dough and making butter.