The image of you holding an Easy Bake Oven gives me serious doubts that I'm actually awake.

Biggest thing the raised hearth did, was take the back-ache out of stooping in a fireplace!!

This may seem off topic, but as someone with hearing difficulties, I greatly appreciate the volume and clarity in these videos. I don't have to turn on the subtitles to understand and enjoy them. Thank you. And this was great!

A video over apartment living throughout the centuries would be interesting. Cooking, eating, how they were setup.

In addition to the water jacket, my stove had drying racks so if you came in with wet small items you could warm or dry them. Great for frozen socks and gloves.

We see examples of ancient Roman "stew stoves" as Jon describes along outdoor boulevards. This is how ancient Roman street food was generally cooked.

The thumbnail for this video is perfection

The raised hearth must have reduced back pain by 80%.

The raised hearth looks like my ideal outdoor kitchen lol

Free range, organic, sourced locally, farm to table, eating according to the seasons. They sure were 18th century foodies.

As a little kid in 90' I still remember there was cast iron stove when my family moved in to the old apartament.

The precursor to the easy bake oven was a mini cast iron stove. Toy versions were first created in the mid 19th century. Unfortunately, children were seriously injured and killed using the working models.

I grew up in an old house in rural Australia. We had an old wood fired stove/oven that also heated the water for the hot water system. It was great in winter. It would warm the front rooms of the house, heat the water and be the cooking place. Cooking cakes was a bit hit and miss because there was no way to regulate the heat other than add more wood or light it early in the day to cook a cake in the evening. Sometimes the water was so hot you could hear bubbling in the pipes. We were taught from a young age to be extra careful when turning on the hot water taps. Wood stoves are a lot of work to maintain and there is always a fine layer of soot building up somewhere.

Ironically with our exceptionally convenient gas and electric hobs etc., in the UK one of the most desirable things for a country house is an Aga - the cast iron range cooker that's the direct descendant of the earliest metal wood stoves.

Even in the 1950s, many people in rural North America didn't have power in their homes. Wood stoves, or cooking over fire was the only way people could prepare meals. Drying and canning were also essential for food preparation. Long ago, learning to cook was essential for survival. There were no fast food outlets around back then. This was very interesting. Cheers!

Would love to see a comparison video making the same recipe with modern vs historic equipment and how the flavor/cooking experience changes

In Finland we never really had a lack of firewood, so we never really translated into gas ovens, straight to electric ones. Also the cooking appliances had to double up as heaters, so the typical kitchen stove until the 1950's maybe had a iron cover and separate oven (usually water tank too) but otherwise the stove was made of bricks, so the stove also kept the heat at least for a while to keep the kitchen nice and warm. Factory-made versions had a metal frame around the brickwork, also all-brick versions custom made by a mason were widely used. Sometimes connected to a larger fireplace or baking oven.

The Easy-Bake Oven was introduced in 1963 by Kenner. The original used a pair of ordinary incandescent light bulbs as a heat source; so our ancestors had it rough. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens had been sold. I do so enjoy learning ancient history --- don't you?

I'll never think of "Hickory Smoked" anything, the same way again. Wonderfully eye-opening, as always.

Just want to thank you for making interesting videos for such a long time. That recent onion pie with the apples and hard-boiled eggs was intriguing. Just downloaded this video to watch later offline so I just wanted to give you a general appreciation.

We got Townsends holding an easy bake oven before GTA6

An interesting variant is the tile stove. Basically a masonry oven with small fire in it. Useful in winter as the masonry would retain the heat and help warm the house at night.

This was a great episode, with information presented differently than I have heard it before. Thank you, Jon, for being willing to do all that research and share it with us. You deserve your success.

"With our modern kitchens we cook less and less." I got a good chuckle out of that one! I can't help but think of the commercials I'm seeing lately (I won't mention the brand!) for a certain pre-prepared meal-in-a-box with a push-button robo-oven that the consumer needs very little effort on their part to use. "OK," I say to myself, "And just WHAT are you gonna do if there's a power failure?" Hey, if all else fails I've got my sterno stove and last-resort fireplace. It's wouldn't be fun but I'd manage. Great show Jon! And a FAST 16 minutes!

The farm my folks retired to had a big Kalamazoo wood stove with a plate/food warmer box on top, four lids, with one being a three ring, 9" one, a stove with a dial heat indicator on the door and a water heater on the right side. Although in perfect shape and beautiful with its white and blue enamel decorations, my Mom had always cooked on a gas stove and disliked all the fuss involved with burning wood. So the stove went in the barn and we got a bottle gas stove from Sears...Dad had to install a radiator in the kitchen so it wouldn't get cold in winter...

I love these summaries. Hopefully it's a promise of more deep dives into these cooking methods.

REALLY enjoyed this video.

In the Deep South, we just always had an outdoor cooking shack.

Albion's Seed is a great book. So much useful information about early N. America.

The remarkable thing about the thumbnail is that the same story has played out with the Easy Bake Oven over the years (see Weird History Food's video) as tastes in food change, safety concerns have increased, and the technology it was originally based around (the incandescent light bulb) has been phased out.

Thanks for so meaningful and valuable video as always ❤❤❤

I was 27 when we bought our home and it came with a 1941 chambers stove. They were supposed to take it but they were unable to move it. So I was upset by it and ate fast food and microwave meals for a couple weeks then I decided to learn it. omg it's amazing and I love ot so much. Its double Insulated with with a griddle, broiler, and a well. It makes me so happy and I learned to cook, really cook, on it. Over 20 years now. When we cook at others homes and spaces we can tell the amazing difference of the simple device we have vs even the best technology solves. It's helped Andy desire to learn about older cooking adlifestyles and how to implement them into ours. This was a great video

As someone who first discovered you due to your 16mm film channel, I can't help but see all the beautiful video you've included in this video. it feels more like a film than a video.

Hello Townsend clan members! Greeting from Missouri. I have only been watching your fascinating channel for about 6 months but I love the content you folks produce. I am an avid history buff and am very interested in how humans have adapted and innovated with food, cooking methods, food preservation methods and all the clever hardware being used through the years to prepare meals. I want to remind all your viewers that the techniques you teach us are just as valid today as they were then. There are wars being waged all over the globe and the human beings involved often lose all of the modern conveniences we take for granted when preserving and cooking food. They are reverting to these older methods to stay alive in war torn cities and towns. Keep up the good work, Townsends!

This is a great video. I learned so much! Didn’t know that I’ve been cooking on a stew stove for the past thirty years and gave me a more in depth understanding of cooking interpretation.

Absolutely love your content. You guys are awesome.

Hearing you say East Anglia really got my attention as that's where I'm from! I much prefer cooking the old fashioned way over modern ways, the old ways are just so much more comforting.

I look forward to every week’s episode! This was great.

Fantastic overview of the timeline of cooking technologies! Too true about cooking less and less! Wonderful work and much thanks to all the Townsends Team! 😃✨

Thanks Jon , great video and information . I love your raised hearth for cooking .

Another great video Townsends

Love that thoughtful video. Thanks for it❣

Loved this deep dive! More, please!

This is one of the most informative episodes yet! Thanks John!

An excellent post, loved it.

Exceptionally well done! Informative, educational and fascinating!

Great video as always

Thanks Townsends. Your team of excellent people provide us with fantastic videos after another.

A superb presentation of our past times cooking means. I grew up with much of these methods of the 18th and 19th century, as a small child and when visiting my grandparents. I recall exactly the open fireplace cooking in their Lounge room, and a cast iron fire/oven in the Kitchen, my parents had what was called a slow combustion stove in the kitchen which was wood stoked and hot plate above and an oven off to one side and a water reservoir on the other. All great memories of off our past times as we age in the 21st century. Thank you

Excellent video! 😊

outstanding video as always

Thanks Jon, always enjoy these glimpses into the past. ❤

Thanks John! This channel makes such a difference in my day. I appreciate you taking the time to cover all these diverse topics.

I often watch these videos just before bed, they're so relaxing!

This was really interesting. Thanks so much for sharing this little slice of history!

Your video was informative, interesting, and brought back long forgotten memories of getting to visit a historical/pioneer village as a kid in school. Thank you for doing what you do.

Great video! 😍 loved it

Absolutely fascinating, and brilliantly presented. Thank you! 👌👌👌

I love this channel so much. I love it.

What a brilliant historical piece. Very well done. You cover a facet of history that few do and you do it so well. My compliments

Absolutely fantastic, informative video.

We had a major power outage across the south a few years ago a giant ice storm that took out power for up to a week or 2 we hunted and made stews to cook in our fireplace it was a rough and cold time but strangely also very comforting cooking with ur family at a fireplace that you hunted the meat to put in. If only I had the knowledge today that iv learned from this channel about preservation of eggs and such we would have been feasting a lot better

That was really neat information. Thank you ☺️

This was fantastic!

One of your best videos. The research, script, presentation and production made this video very interesting and informative.

This was a great video! Thank you!

Gosh I love this channel

Another excellent video. 😊

Such a great video! Thanks!

Thank you for this.. Very interesting

Super interesting, with great background information on historical cooking.

Such a fascinating and wonderful topic, I always learn something new when I watch your videos! I never thought of the whys of a raised cook surface. Or a hood letting the smoke out. Necessity really is the mother of invention.

this is supreme content, thank you for it

This channel is like a warm hug, Thanks.

Beautiful video, as always. It really saddens me to see how people cook less with each passing year. Thanks again for all your lessons and little bits of insight here and there. God bless the Townsends team. 🙏🏻

Great video!!!

I lived in a house in Massachusetts that still had the original cooking fireplace that had survived since the early 1800's. It was about 5 feet high and 6 feet wide, had two small ovens, a grate and a pivoting arm. I baked bread, both yeast and quick, and made lentil and other stews in it. We used it for heat as well. I was only 20 years old so not an experienced cook but wouldn't I love to have access to that wonderful fireplace now at 68! Very interesting video, thank you.

What a great overview!

Beautiful history lesson, thanks Townsends team.

You guys are one of my favorite channels. Thank you for being one of the most hard working, and authentic channels :) My day is made whenever you post a video that shows me the true definition of passion.

This was a great video. Townsend you're on point more than ever

Great topic!

Very interesting. Thank you!

And to think that when I go back country hiking, I still cook on a wood burning stove 🙂

My parents both grew up with wood burning stoves back in the 20's and 30's. Hard to imagine how much cooking changed even over the course of their lifetimes!

I've always appreciated how much this channel goes into detail about the importance of cooktops and heat surfaces. And how much that affects the types of dishes that get made. It sure makes one appreciate one's big stainless pots and pans and fancy electric and gas ranges!

I remember the outdoor oven from a trip to a roman castellum at the Limes. The brick oven, where the wood is being scraped out is a childhood memory. My grandfather built it for baking bread. My aunt still used into the late 80ies. All the small villages around still have that baking house but it is only occasionally used.

Learning history always invokes intense gratitude in me for the blessings I have today. Thanks, Townsends!

The simple 16th century cook has nothing on my easy bake oven 😎

Methinks that Townsends is indeed a time traveler.

fantastic episode ❤❤❤❤

Thanks for uploading bro, keep it up

Yay i love townsemds!!!!

Just made cookies in my Coleman oven to practice no power cooking

Great video! We do a lot of cooking in my household, and prep can still take an hour plus one to three hours to actually cook

Thanks Jon, A Very Informative and Interesting Video!

Always a great escape when watching your videos 😊

This is an amazing video! Wow!

I am so happy to have memories of my great uncle’s housekeeper cooking and baking with a wood fuel stove. It had the hot water reservoir to the back. They had a hand pump at the kitchen sink and yes, an outhouse. Uncle Charlie lived back the lane behind our property that sat on a main road into the city of Johnstown, PA. We moved from there to Ohio in 1966 when I was 7. And, that was the best bread I’ve ever ate.

Excellent, thank you.