Fire, it's an incredible thing and we don't think much about it today. If you were in
the 18th century the 1700s and you want a hot meal it's going to be cooked over an open fire.
Maybe it's a wood fire if you don't have wood it might be something like coal or dry grass or peat
regardless you're cooking over an open fire. You don't have any other choices.
You want to see after dark? Maybe on your way someplace outside or inside your home. Your
choices are an open flame, possibly a oil lamp a primitive and stinky oil lamp, or very expensive
candles, or the light from your fireplace. That's it, those are your choices that's all you've got.
You want to heat your home in the winter? Well you probably just have a fireplace, you might have a
very very primitive wood stove. Again there are no other choices. Everyone all the time
in the 18th century is dealing with open flame. They know how to start a fire simply, quickly.
It's a daily task for everyone, they know how to tend it, they know the fuel they they have to
continually purchase or deal with to go out into the woods and constantly be harvesting firewood.
And it's not just at home either it's in basically every industry going on in the 18th century
whether it's a simple home-based industry or a large you know factory kind of situation you have
open flame in all these kinds of settings. If it's as simple as you know fiber arts,
weaving and processing fabric, yeah, you need flame you need a fire going someplace.
If you're going to be doing something big an industrial glass blowing or you know large scale
blacksmithing yep you've got open flames got it all the time you're dealing with it constantly.
Now fire is just as important today as it ever was probably even more so
but yet we have protected ourselves from fire we have um it's still there someplace
but it's hidden away from us so that we don't even see it. Many of us heat our homes with something
like gas or fuel oil and there's a furnace somewhere in your house there's flames in it
but we can't even see them. I mean maybe there's a tiny little peephole where we can see a
little blue flame and that's it. We go over to the wall we hit a button our house is instantly
heated. There's fire we just can't see it. We go over to the light switch to turn on our lights
and likely there's some giant power plant somewhere and there's fire at the center of it
making our electricity for us so that we can see at night. We have to have it and we again
we don't see it we don't recognize it we don't have to deal with it we are protected from it.
And while we're protected from it isn't it interesting that we still yearn for fire.
I think we all enjoy a simple romantic candlelight you know at a dinner or you know in the evening
we enjoy that feeling uh that fire gives us and it's a luxury now to have
a fireplace in your home that you can you know enjoy we don't need it
in fact it in many fireplace designs they're less efficient than you know nothing at all it actually
takes heat out of your home to start up your fireplace in some circumstances.
But yet we want it we desire it we want to enjoy that and if we don't have the luxury of having
a fireplace then you know sometimes we'll tune into fire on our television set so we can watch
fire someplace even though it's vicariously it's not even fire a true fire that's in our home.
I was asked one time not very long ago about um a spice an 18th century spice that we were missing
in today's cooking and of course the person was was wanting me to answer uh nutmeg because
you know nutmeg features so heavily here on our channel but I thought instantly that the
thing that we're really missing from food from the 18th century is smoke it's fire.
That's the flavor that we are missing from the 18th century more often than not.
Isn't it interesting that we so much enjoy going out and cooking on the grill outside
we use open flame and we cook outside and maybe we use charcoal we're getting closer and closer to
you know cooking in the 18th century way with smoke and flames and we enjoy the process
and the outcome of it. Yes, we go back and we try to get that flavor whenever we can we're trying to
I don't know go back and and grasp on to some of our heritage when we are cooking on the grill.
I have the privilege of having a job where I have to deal with fire all the time and sometimes it's
a great pleasure like today this is wonderful it's a cool morning and the fire is you know the
radiant heat that comes off of it the light that comes off of it the whole process is enjoyable.
And sometimes it's not so enjoyable it's a hot day and I need to do a video and we're cooking over
an open fire and it's just it's terrible it's you know super hot and it's smelly and it's difficult.
But I do enjoy it. I think it's something that we do need to get back to more we can't forget
our connection with fire and protect ourselves from it so completely that we never
even get to see it. Not realizing how spoiled we are in the modern world.
Thanks for coming along with me today as as I just contemplate a little bit about how
important fire is and how much we're protected from it and how much we still yearn it. Thanks
for being part of this channel and what we do thanks for watching have a great day.