Wooden bowls come in very handy for kneading bread at reenactments. (It keeps your table AND your dough a lot cleaner!) They are generally 13" to 18" across, and between 3" to 3 1/2" deep.
Mason Jars were patented in 1858. The most common colors were flint, aqua and pale green. Rarer colors are olive green, cobalt blue and amber.
Period jar tops were one-piece zinc coated and sealed at the bottom of the lid on the shoulder of the jar and not the two-piece lids and rings we use today. With any glass jar there is always the potential for breakage.
By shopping around you can get period shaped jars for $6 - 8 that don't carry a company name from after the war. Watch out for dealers who try to sell a jar with "Mason Patent November 30, 1858" as an 1858 canning jar. Some jars that carry that patent date were not made until 30 years or more later. The patent date only refers to the particular design of the closure and not the date of jar manufacture.
Sorry, I don't have any pics available yet.
Period forks are generally skinny and have 3 prongs. I like to refer to them as "dieter" forks, because they take a long time to eat with (you know, they tell you to eat slowly when you're trying to lose weight!) Knives are very simple looking, but beware, they can be extremely sharp,especially the newer ones.
Scour inside with steel wool until you get a reasonable cooking surface (smooth again) you don't have to take it down to bare metal. Get really bad gunk outside the same way. (It's going back in the fire so don't worry too much about it.)
Dry with towel then stick it in a hot 400 degree oven to dry thouroughly. Let Cool! Slather some Vegetable grease (ie Crisco) on the cooking surfaces, get the sides too. Put it back in the oven upside down (Put foil on the rack below to catch the drippings) Cook again for an hour.
Check, if grease is still wet cook some more until dry. Remember pan will be extremely hot, oven will smoke, open windows. Don't panic, like I did when we cured the brand new ones.
If the pan tastes like metal the first time you use it, or rusts, wash gently, wipe dry put a layer of vegetable oil on it put on the fire to cure again. These are the basic new pan instructions the process is the same for old pans. Don't worry about the outside.
"As typed by Linda Larson for Beowulf Kilpatrick"
After washing tin, be sure to dry it completely with mineral oil. This will prevent rust.
Never, never put your tin directly into the fire. This damages the soldering.
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