Rachael Storey and Nicole Bergman prepared a meal at the 1850 Pioneer Farm during Saturday’s cook off. (Photo: Living History Farms)
By Michael Morain
Step aside, Food Network. Living History Farms hosts its own cooking competition, with surprise ingredients, discerning judges and two centuries of drama.
The latest round of the “Cast-Iron Cook-Off” took place Saturday, when cooks in four of the Urbandale museum’s historic kitchens had just a few hours to whip up a historically authentic meal with four surprise ingredients: beef, acorn squash, blackberries and maple syrup.
The competitors on the museum’s interpretive staff had to use only the cooking equipment, techniques and recipes at their respective sites: the 1700 Ioway Farm, the 1850 Pioneer Farm, the 1876 Tangen House in the town of Walnut Hill, and the 1900 Farm.
They could use additional ingredients, as long as those ingredients would have been available in an Iowa kitchen in their respective time periods. For example, only the 1900 cook would have had vanilla, thanks to the arrival of the railroads.
“With the railroads, you could get anything you wanted,” said Meg Anderson, the Farms’ historic foodways specialist and … cue the drumroll … the new Cast-Iron Cook-Off champion.
Working with a wood-burning oven in the 1876 Tangen House, Anderson won Saturday’s challenge with a made-from-scratch menu of beef stew; squash roasted with maple syrup, ginger and cinnamon; and a blackberry pudding she adapted from a U.S. Centennial cookbook that featured recipes dating back to 1776.
The toughest part, she said, was cooking while visitors watched and peppered her with questions. “You had to be able to explain what you were doing,” she said. (Come to think of it, even modern home cooks have to do that for a skeptical child or spouse.)
Three judges — two Farms staffers and a board member — traveled through 200 years to sample each cook’s meal and score them on taste, presentation and historical value. “We definitely didn’t pace ourselves,” said judge Allison Clark, one of the Farms’ interpreters. “I ran out of room to finish the pie, which was sad.”
For her prize, Anderson will take home a set of tea towels, hot pads and mug. She also won bragging rights, at least until the next cook-off.
The museum’s regular season continues 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through Oct. 30. In the off-season, visitors can book reservations for historic teas and dinners featuring pot roasts, homemade rolls slathered in butter and other hearty homemade dishes from an era before the invention of cholesterol.
