# Furnishing the Kitchen

We have spoken above (cf. Ills. 63–69) of the most important forms of the open and closed fireplaces, on which raw food was cooked or baked.

Fig. 135. Earthenware baking pan.
Great Plain. Late 19th century

Most cooking vessels were made of pottery. The ornamentation of milk jugs (köcsög) was simple. Of these, poorer households possessed four or five, the richer ones often more than twenty. Earthenware pots, varying in size, were generally left in their original colour: red, gray-black, or white. The largest among them have a volume of 25 to 30 litres, and are used at weddings to cook soup and stuffed cabbage. They were used partly on the open fire, partly on the hearth. Because such large cooking pots were used only rarely and on special occasions, they were generally kept in the attic and filled with vegetables and dry fruit. The earthenware pan is actually a larger, elongated platter, with or without legs, with turned up sides. Meat is roasted in it, in plenty of lard, on an iron tripod placed over the open fire, or placed on the bottom of the hearth. Sometimes its shape imitates the shape of the fowl that is baked in it.

Fig. 136. Tripod for a pot when cooking on an open fire and a similar four-legged stand.
Monor, Pest County. 1930s

143. Kitchen with stove
Bábonymegyer, Somogy County

144. Cauldron in the sheep fold
Gyimes, former Kolozs County

Fig. 137. Ways of hanging up a cauldron when cooking out of doors.
Monor, Pest County. 1930s

The man who eats in the field or regularly goes there often fries bacon {278.} for himself even today. The grate (rostély) is a square iron lattice on legs, under which embers are heaped to roast the meat. Cast-iron pots and pans were also used in the peasant kitchen.

The most widely used iron vessel was the cauldron (bogrács), which they call üst in Transylvania. One form is round, and its edge turns outward.

Fig. 138. Wooden buckets for dipping into water and for storing water.
Őriszentpéter, Vas County. Around 1940

Its equivalent variations can be traced through the Eastern Slavs all the way to the Caucasus. The other form is pear-shaped, its edge upstanding and straight. This type is found in the southern part of the linguistic region and is equivalent to Balkan forms. Soup and meat is cooked in a cauldron, over an open fire. Kettles made of copper are larger than the former, and were used for boiling bacon, blood sausage, to melt down fat, or boil fodder for the stock. Such cauldrons were used in built-in fireplaces primarily in Transdanubia and the Great Plain. The latter type of cauldron is western in origin and came to Hungary only in the nineteenth century.

Fig. 139. Unglazed earthenware jugs for holding and carrying water.
Great Plain. Early 19th century

145. Spoon-rack
Semjén, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County

146. Wooden bowl with two handles
Szuhahuta, Heves County

Among the vessels used for storing water, the bucket was earlier made of wood, and its sheet metal versions spread only from the second half of the 19th century. The different types of jugs (korsó) served both to carry and store water. The unglazed, red and black versions are preferred {280.} because in the summer the fieldworkers can bury its base in the ground so that the evaporating water remains cool inside.

Differently shaped and formed cooking vessels made of various materials, along with the many supplementary utensils, are generally kept in the kitchen (cf. pp. 149–53). If their shape permits, they are hung on the wall, along with the plates used for eating. The larger vessels and platters are usually kept in the cupboard placed in the foreground of the kitchen. It is a relative newcomer to the peasant house.