Kitchen

Before modern preservation, unless it was eaten right away, food was preserved through pickling, dehydrating, smoking, or other methods. Hence the numerous large vessels and kitchen tools. There is no solid evidence of a permanent kitchen fixture outside of this one. This means that cooking year-round was likely done here. To prevent kitchen and house fires, the floor would have been hard-packed dirt.

This room illustrates and reinforces the idea of someone’s station: one group seen as better than another Enslaved individuals were “here, but not here” - they were present to serve, not to be a part of daily conversations and activities. In addition to the practicality of the workspace, (the rising heat from cookfires heat the rest of the house and the location being suitable for having cooking activities go on while other activities are completed) the kitchen area reinforces the “out of sight” idea, the literal placement of the kitchen beneath the house reinforces this idea of station.

Enslaved individuals who worked in domestic roles such as child rearing, seamstresses, cooks etc. would likely have slept in the main house, or where they worked, such as this kitchen.