Posted by Ed Kiser on April 16, 2005 at 22:33:27 from 152.163.100.6 user Kisered.
In WINTER HOLIDAY, Chapter ONE:
-----------
They came down into the big farm kitchen, where Mrs. Dixon had their breakfast ready for them, two bowls of hot porridge on the
kitchen table, that was covered with a red-and-white chequered
table-cloth, and some rashers of bacon sizzling in the frying-pan
that she was holding over the fire.
-----------
The oddity that the above description shows is that while cooking the bacon, Mrs. Dixon had to HOLD the frying-pan. She did not put it ON the stove, but had to hold it over an open fire.
Now if Susan had had to hold a frying-pan while cooking something over the fire of a camp fire might be a bit more acceptable, yet even then, I would expect that she had arranged the stones about the fire in such a manner that perhaps she could rest the frying-pan on those stones rather than hand hold it. But to be in the farm kitchen with its stove and for the cook to have to hand-hold that frying pan, that makes me feel that this kitchen stove was a much more primitive device than I would normally have assumed. My expectation was that the stove would have a flat top metal surface, with the fire underneath, that could hold the pot or pan while cooking.
Ed Kiser, South Florida