Hay Box Cooking - Old Methods of Keeping fuel costs down Part One
When I was a little girl, my Nan had a small Wood/Coal Rayburn Range cooker in her tiny unfitted kitchen which kept the family warm during some really frozen cold winters as well as well as giving a wonderful facility for cooking really good food, making bread, and drying and ironing the laundry. Like its much more expensive cousin the Aga, this type of Range Cooker is more a way of life and once you become used to them you never really want to be without them. As I have said, my Nan had one, my Aunty R had one and also my Uncle who had a farm also had one and they were a constant feature of my younger life. Our PJs used to be warmed on them before getting ready for bed. As well as the Range cooker, the cottage where my grandparents' lived had an open fire in the front best room and the dining room, and the house used to be really hot and toasty during the winter months as a result. Later on my grandparents' moved with the times and had a Log Burner f...