My "Garage" when I bought this property. I feel absolutely sure it began life as a barn, but the presence of a large spinning turbine vent on the roof, and a decayed pipe almost buried, right about where those white shelves on the left are (which I placed there) seems to be a connection for either natural gas or propane, signaling past use as a summer kitchen
Some history: The single main reason for building a small summer kitchen was to keep the main house cool by preparing meals elsewhere. At this time, there was no air conditioning, and cooking was done exclusively on wood-burning stoves and fireplace hearths, both of which radiated intense heat. Keeping the heat, the smoky smells, and the risk of fire out of the main house made good sense. When winter arrived and the canning season was over, most of the daily cooking resumed in the main house on a cast-iron woodstove As slave ownership in New England dwindled during the early 19th Century, so did the appeal of large summer kitchens. Some were converted into stables or living quarters while others fell into disrepair and were eventually torn down. Smaller summer kitchens remained in vogue for another hundred years or so, their final decline coming with the advent of gas and electric stoves around the time the Great Depression ended. The new stoves radiated less heat and didn’t create clouds of billowing smoke. In addition, indoor running water was newly being installed, making it more convenient to do most of the cooking in the main house kitchen.
source
SO... in my experience growing up in S Ga, where the summers are extremely hot and humid, and most homes in rural areas did not have AC, everything possible was done to keep the main home as cool as possible.
PLUS, Farm homes did a lot of }CANNING](https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/canning-foods-at-home/) was done in large quantities, because the farm often produce much more food than the family could use, canning allowed it to be preserved, share with others and enjoyed again during cold weather.
The summer kitchens I encountered were full kitchens, in a separate building near the farm house, and the women folk would typically spend many VERY hot hours out there.
Oops! How did that get in there?😈
Since I'd been experiencing AC issues resulting in every climbing electric bills, I decided to run an extension cord out there for electricity and set up my NuWave magnetic induction hot plate
Set up so I could look out my REAL kitchen window and keep an eye on things
That one cooker made a large difference in the amount of heat created in the house.
Think about it. You burn up energy to heat and cook the food, then your AC burns up energy to remove that heat from the house.
SO, why not do what cooking you can outside the house?
A friend saw my post about the NuWave cooking top, said she had a NuWave infrared oven (sorta like an air fryer) she had used, but not much and never now.
I paid her $50 for that, and she threw in the electric broiler with rotisserie
I bought that table yesterday at a yard sale for $20.
Gotta read up on how to use the infrared oven.
At the present, it is too hot out there to even go stand there for even a few moments, but I have plans, oh I have such plans.
"Summer Kitchen develops"
by
Jerry E Smith
©07/25/2021
All images original
Wanna come eat?