Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation The Old Summer Kitchens?

In the midwest years ago some farm houses had summer kitchens, a small building apart from the house to cook in during hot weather. Were the kitchens a usual item where you are?

Many farms where I'm from in Pa. had a summer house apart from the main house.

Denny, the story is, many of them burned. In the days of baking bread, I'll think the remote kitchen kept heat from the house.

In Iowa, corn cobs were the heat source, what about other places?

My understanding is that keeping cool is/was he concept of he separate buildings.

Yeh, sure. The landscape was dotted with summer kitchens at one time. My maternal great grandparents moved the wood cook stove to and from the house kitchen and the summer kitchen on a seasonal basis. There was a breezeway between the two buildings. In fact I owned the stove lifter after they left the farm. It had four small dolly wheels and two forks and a long handle. Slide the forks under a stove and pump the handle to lift the stove.

Not here, there was an abundance of firewood. Corn cobs were used in the outhouse.

OTOH Rhett and Scarlett were makin' whoopie in the main house while the rest of the crew was baking.

My wife's aunts lake house had a summer kitchen attached to the side of the boathouse. When the family gathered during the summer months the old folks would have hot chicken and noodles in the summer kitchen no matter how hot the weather.

in our farm houses in SW Virginia, there were no 'summer kitchens'. Same room was used all year round for cooking.

My Italian paternal grandparents had one, "the cabina", as it was called. It was best known for the ravioli that was produced... This was in NorCal.

I think there are 2 summer kitchens on farms on the Gettysburg battle field. Park service said they were to keep the house cool. and localize a potential fire.

My Grandparents had a huge wood burning range that they moved to the screened porch during summer.

I'm building an outdoor/covered sink/counter top area for fish/veggie/game cleaning etc. Been thinking about add a cook top to it.

Do it, you'll like it.

The family of one of my friends in high school had one on their property. My friend, his sister, and his father lived in a trailer. (Mom had passed away.) As soon as it got warm enough in the spring, my friend moved himself into the old summer kitchen (which was quite nice - clean, had a 'fridge, a table, his bed, a few chairs, and a TV) until it got too cold in the fall (or winter). Also on the property was the old main house, which was very interesting. It was large and had two separate upstairs, reached by different staircases; one was for the family and the other was for hired help. There was also a strange room (closet?) upstairs that had a door that opened inward. When the door was opened, the sweep took up half of the room.

Folks around here would move their wood burning cook stove out on the porch in the summer time. Keep the heat out of the house.