The following is from the Durand-Hedden House & Garden
In an annual tradition spanning 35 years, visitors have gathered around Durand-Hedden’s 18th century hearth and experienced how Maplewood residents of long ago cooked, ate, and kept warm during the long winter months. On January 22, Durand-Hedden is pleased to welcome a new cook and food historian, Susan Luczu, to its kitchen.
On the menu this year will be vegetable beef soup, apple-cornbread fritters, bubble and squeak, beer batter bread and hearth roasted beets cooked over the fire. Watch how it’s done, breathe in the wonderful aromas in our historic house, and sample a few centuries-old treats. Children can try their hands at old-fashioned cooking chores like kneading dough, churning butter, and watch a spinster make yarn at her wheel. The event is free to the public and no registration is required.
Susan Luczu is a New Jersey food historian who has a passion for open hearth cooking that she has practiced at historic sites such as Monmouth County Historical Society’s Covenhoven House as well as the cooking fireplace of her own circa 1705 home in the historic Old Bridge community of East Brunswick. A participant in many culinary organizations and activities, she is webmaster of the Historic Foodways Society of the Delaware Valley and in April 2016 received the NJDAR “Women in American History Award” for her work in preserving, promoting and demonstrating Colonial Domestic Arts and skills in Hearth Cooking.
An Annual Tribute
Durand-Hedden’s mid-winter open-hearth cooking demonstration has become an annual tradition to honor late longtime trustee, Irene Kosinski. Irene, a gifted educator and lover of living history, who 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 ‘hungry’ for history. Join us on Sunday, January 22, and see why many visitors return for this wonderful tradition year after year.
Exhibit on Maplewood
Be sure to also see the fascinating exhibit on the history of the College Hill neighborhood From Farm to Suburb: The Birth of College Hill .
Country Shopping
Check out our Country Store’s historic-themed treasures: early American games, books, and toys; facsimile documents; quill pens and ink; historic cookbooks; cookie molds; tin lanterns; and reproductive decorative items and ceramics. You’ll also discover the hard-to-find original Doors of Maplewood poster, Smile: A Pictorial History of Olympic Park 1887-1965, and the new acid-free reproduction of the charming 1931 Map of Maplewood.
About Durand-Hedden House and Garden
Durand-Hedden House is dedicated to telling the history of the development of Maplewood and the surrounding area in new and engaging ways. It is located in Grasmere Park at 523 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood. For more information or to arrange group tours call 973-763-7712. You can also visit our website at durandhedden.org and find us on Facebook and Twitter.
