Was the old pot by the fire really a cooking pot?

Picture an old farmhouse room with a wide stone fireplace. Beside the fire sits a heavy black pot on three stubby legs. Imagine running your fingers over its cold, bumpy iron.

It looks plain, and it looks very old. So was the old pot by the fire really a cooking pot? Let's look at it like detectives and find out.

Long ago, this farmhouse had no kitchen stove like ours. The family cooked every meal on the hearth, which means the stone floor of the fireplace where the fire burns. The pot sat by the fire because that fire was the whole kitchen.

Look at those three short legs. The family cook pushed the pot right into the glowing coals on the hearth. The legs held it steady and let the heat curl underneath, so the food inside got hot.

Now find the curved handle on top. Above the hearth hangs an iron arm with a hook. The cook swung the arm out over the flames and hung the pot there by its handle, so a stew could bubble slowly without burning.

Let's tip the pot in our minds and peek at its bottom. It is covered in soot, which means the black powder that smoke leaves behind. Smoke from the hearth fire left this soot on the pot, meal after meal. If the fire left a mark on the outside, what might the cooking have left inside?

Inside, there is a thin brown crust of old burnt food. Museum workers who look after this old farmhouse scrape off a tiny crumb and test it, and the test shows bits of grain and meat. Only a pot that held real meals has food baked onto it.

Yes, it really was a cooking pot. Long ago the family cooked every meal on the hearth, and the soot outside and the burnt food inside show this pot sat in that fire for years.

Today the pot still sits beside the fire, wearing its coat of soot from all those warm family suppers.