Kitchen witch
A Kitchen Witch (in Austria and the Slovenian Lower Styria saving stove , in northern Germany also rack oven or rod stove called) is a with firewood -fired stove . Kitchen witches were used to cook and heat houses and apartments until around the middle of the 20th century. With increasing modernization, they have largely given way to gas or oil-powered heating systems and stoves. Nowadays they are popular with antique collectors as a pure decorative item.
Furnishing
Typical models of the kitchen witch, as they were manufactured since the end of the 19th century and up to the 1950s, have several round openings to the combustion chamber in the cast iron top cover plate. These are closed with nested, circular and flat covers made of cast iron, the hearth rings. The rings can be removed individually from the inside to the outside, creating an opening the size of the base of the cookware . Put on pots , saucepans and pans are touched directly by the fire burning underneath, which saves energy, but also the bottom of the cookware is contaminated with soot .
In addition to the cooking equipment, a typical kitchen witch has an integrated oven . A water ship can also be set up on the stove - a rectangular tank with a tap on one narrow side, in which warm water is kept. Another typical feature is the rotating rod on which towels can be dried. Often there is also a drawer under the kitchen witch in which fuel or other accessories (baking trays, pokers, lighter and the like) can be stored. Some kitchen witches also have a half-height back wall that is clad with tiles and protects the kitchen wall from splashes of fat. Often kitchen witches were richly decorated. Painted tiles or enamel and nickel-plated metal parts made the stove a focal point in the kitchen and a particular pride of the housewife. Immediately after the Second World War , particularly simple, small models were made that took into account the lack of materials at the time and the limited living conditions.
Footnotes
- ↑ Sächsische Zeitung - Döbelner Anzeiger of July 11, 2017, p. 17: Courage to switch off .
- ↑ Generalanzeiger Altmark-West of May 22, 2016, page 3: Kitchen anno 1900 .
