Still room: Difference between revisions

The still room is a room for preparing household compounds, found in most great houses, castles or large establishments throughout Europe, dating back at least to medieval times. Stillrooms were used to make products as varied as candles, furniture polish, and soap; distillery was only one of the tasks carried out there.

The still room was a working room, part chemistry lab, part compounding pharmacy, part perfumery, part beverage factory, and part kitchen. Professional manufacturers such as dispensing chemists and apothecaries gradually took over many still-room tasks, producing the products of the still-room commercially.

Originally, the still room was a very important part of the household. The lady of the house was in charge of the room, and she taught her daughters and wards^{[1][failed verification][better source needed]} some of the skills needed to run their own homes in order to make them more marriageable. As practical skills fell out of fashion for high-born women, the still room became the province of poor dependent relations.

Medieval households also made many perfumes, such as rosewater, and powders made from orris root, lavender, and calamus; they also dried and used meadowsweet, germander, hyssop, rosemary, thyme, violet, and woodruff.^[2]

The literate hand-wrote their own collections of stillroom recipes, often mixed with food recipes. These receipt-books were often amended from experience, and were valued, and bequeathed in wills. Recipes from these books largely remain the same from generation to generation.^[3] These collections were often collaborative, multi-authored collections of useful practical knowledge, a "family book" like a family Bible.^[4]

A still room in a Renaissance great house would be equipped with distillation equipment, and a waist-high brazier or chafing dish. There might well be an adjoining stove room, with a small stove and slatted shelves for drying. Spirits, wines, syrups, and waters were distilled.^[3]

Sugar became widely available to the upper classes in the Renaissance. Renaissance houses made many sugary conceits, such as cordials (beverage syrups), comfits (candy-coated nuts and spices), spiced sugar candies, candied fruit and plants, preserved in syrups, fruit jellies, fruit conserves, quince pastes, marmalades, and crumb gingerbreads.^[3]

Pickling vegetables and fruit, laundry methods, remedies,

Medicines were prepared, cosmetics and many home cleaning products created,^{[citation needed]} and home-brewed beer or wine was often made. Herbs and flowers from the kitchen garden and surrounding countryside were preserved for flavoring food and processed tinctures, distillates, and syrups.^{[5][better source needed]} ointments, soaps, furniture polishes, and a wide variety of medicines.^{[6][better source needed]}

Printing meant that book availability, and literacy rates, rose. Stillroom recipes (along with general food recipes) were more commonly written down, by women and men. Some receipt-books were also made to be published (see Still room#See also for a selection). Recipes from printed books were often copied into home-made manuscript collections, and recipes from manuscripts were collected for print, causing a drastic increase in the pace of innovation. Manuscript recipes change little from 1200 to 1500, but subsequently they change every 40-50 years.^[3]

During this period, medicines were increasingly purchased, not home-made.^[3]

In later years, as physicians and apothecaries became more widely spread and the products of the still room became commercially available, the still room increasingly became an adjunct of the kitchen. The use of the still room devolved to making only preserves, jellies, and home-brewed beverages, and it became a store room for perishables such as cakes.

The stillroom was used to make preserves, including pickled eggs and vegetables, fermented vegetables and vinegars, dried foods, dried herbs and flowers, spice preparations, canning vegetables and chutnetys, marmalades, and jams; beverages, such as tea, bottled drinks, and beer; and perfumes, candles, and home remedies.^[12] It was also used to prepare afternoon tea; not just the beverages, but sandwiches and cakes.^[13][14][15] The good china for tea was therefore also kept there.^[15]

The still room was staffed by the housekeeper or cook, then later by the still room maid, who also served afternoon tea.

If beverages were not dispensed from food service counters, then the design of commercial kitchens in hotels and restaurants traditionally included a still room where tea, coffee and other beverages were prepared and dispensed. These would be located immediately adjacent to hotel lounges. Central in the still room would be a gas or electric water boiler and separate coffee brewers. Crockery, tea pots and coffee pots would also be stored here.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stillrooms.

• Leong, E (May 2013). "Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household". Centaurus; international magazine of the history of science and medicine. 55 (2): 81–103. doi:10.1111/1600-0498.12019. PMID 23926360.

• Reciept-books, unpublished and published:
  • The Good Huswifes Jewell (1585)
  • The English Huswife (1615)
  • The closet of the eminently learned Sir Kenelm Digbie Kt. opened: Whereby is discovered several ways for making of metheglin, sider, cherry-wine &c. together with excellent directions for cookery: as also for preserving, conserving, candying, &c. (1669)
  • The Receipt Book of Lady Anne Blencowe, by Anne Blencowe, 1694^[16]
  • Mrs Mary Eales's Receipts (1718)
  • A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery (1718)
  • The Compleat Housewife (1727)
  • The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747; includes preservation, distillation, beverages, precautions against pests, shipboard advice, and remedies)
  • The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769)
  • The Lady's Complete Guide (1788)
  • Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861)

This article related to a type of room in a building is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e