Every once in a while when I can feel that nasty winter chill creeping into the old bones, I take a trip out back to my caboose and light up the old wood-burning cookstove, as I did a few nights ago.
When the temperature’s dropped low enough to slow your blood flow, nothing brings it back up to speed better than the heat that pumps out of a hot cookstove, especially if you have your chilly toes propped up against the bottom of it and a hot chocolate in your hands.
I have wonderful memories of the old kitchen cookstove from when I was a young kid growing up in Killarney. In the hour or so before supper, Grandma Lyle, who lived with us, seemed to have more heat and steam coming off that thing than a steam locomotive, and before you knew it, the most delicious dinner emerged from all that commotion.
I’m certainly not alone in having fond memories about cookstoves, and when I put out word for a few friends to share some of theirs with me, I got a pile of responses in return.
I’ll start with a bit of a humorous one from my buddy Alicja Balewicz, mainly because of the image it brings to mind. Now remember how big and heavy a cookstove is:
Alicja: “Yup, we always took a cookstove for our Sunday picnics in the park.” Must have been one strong family. I’ll ask her what she really meant by that some other time.
So many memories. This one from well known Free Press Homes columnist Marc LaBossiere: “When my grandparents still owned their cabin at Albert Beach, the cookstove was always in use. In winter, when venturing out on a day trip to skate on the lake, we’d fire up the cookstove to warm our feet.”
There’s nothing better. Here’s a great trip back in time from Geoff Fierce: “We had a cookstove in our cabin out at Winnipeg Beach and the vent went through all of the bedrooms to allow some heat in them for those crispy spring or fall mornings when we were out there.
“To me there was nothing quite like this and the memories of breakfast cooking on the top and bacon in the oven, ahhh, the combined aromas were spectacular.”
Cheryl Ceanne Bateman has a rather unique stove story to share with us: “Before we built the kitchen part of our cabin, my dad found an old cookstove in a field. It was a bit rusty. He cleaned it up and the kitchen was built around it.”
I like it. Recycling at its finest. Sounds like something I’d do.
Sorry Cheryl. Carry on. “I have great memories of cooking with that stove, heating water in the reservoir winter and summer. The stove eventually fell apart and was replaced with an old electric stove but good memories for sure.”
Thanks Cheryl, and well done Dad.
Y’know I thought home use cookstoves were pretty much gone by the ’70s and ’80s, but not so says Carol Chapman: “In the late ’70s and ’80s … when my kids were born we had an old cookstove and I made soup on it, baked bread in it, and it helped dry the clothes on the clothes racks, kept the kitchen and the main floor warm so the expensive old oil furnace didn’t have to run very often. Great memories.”
No question. Fresh baked bread out of a cookstove is pretty memorable: Ida Sloan: “Nothing like bread out of a wood stove and my mom’s was the best!”
I believe you!
Let’s wrap with this taste treat from Albert Robidoux Todd: “Mom would bake bannock (thin kind) on our cookstove as well as crepes rolled with brown sugar and syrup on top.”
Mmmmm. Sounds magical. Have a great weekend folks.
Comments and column ideas welcome at
lmustard1948@gmail.com
