We used our fireplaces for cooking, heating water for washing and warming the home. This house has two hearths. The dining room served as the winter kitchen. It has a fireplace large enough to cook small meals and has a bee hive oven for baking. The large kitchen [in the ell] was used the other three seasons of the year as a work room for cooking, preserving food, and many other tasks.
Spending hours around a hot fire WAS DANGEROUS WORK. Women and girls did the kitchen work; wearing large skirts. Catching fire could easily end in painful death.
Our every day fare was a one pot meal that we kept hot over the fire; home baked bread and soup, stew or chowder.
While mom did the cooking, children would have to entertain themselves, often, everyday items became part of the play:
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old.