Vintage cooking skills seem to be a dying art in the general population. I write a lot about “vintage skills” because I don’t want to see this important knowledge to be lost to current and future generations. You don’t have to be a homesteader or a prepper to appreciate that there a skills we need to maintain, even though modern society has a easier version.
So I sat down and made a list of of the vintage cooking skills or kitchen skills. Some of these may feel extreme for you while others may be ones you know well and can’t believe anyone doesn’t know it. But bear with me because there is something here for all of us to learn! Never assume that these old-fashioned skills are used by anyone, just because you and a group of people on a forum are putting them to practice.
10 Important Vintage Cooking Skills You Should Have
- Cooking with FIRE!
The girl scout in me loves this one. I’m not talking about grilling here folks. I am talking about open fires and wood stoves. We should all learn how to work with an open flame for basic cooking and baking – because you never know when you might HAVE TO! - Butchering & Dressing
If you don’t think that butchering animals and dressing wild game is a kitchen skill, just skip this one. But let’s be honest – pioneer women and even women before and during the great wars knew how to take an animal (chicken, rabbit or small game) and bring it to the table. They raised it, they killed it, cleaned it and cooked it up…if that isn’t impressive, I don’t know what. - Canning and Preserving
I know this one gets talked about a lot but it had to be in here. Canning and preserving food is high on the list essential vintage cooking skills. If you are going to be gardening, shopping the farmer’s market or looking for good deals on produce – you have to know how to make it last!Be sure to see my list of Common Canning Mistakes. - Home Brewing and Wine Making
Home brewing isn’t just a skill, it can be an art form. And wine making can be as well. I’m not advocating drunkenness but these skills can be helpful as well as entertaining. Not to mention that you can use more natural ingredients to create your home beverages. - Fermenting and Pickling
These go along with the canning and preserving but I feel they deserve their own special section. Fermentation and picking not only preserve food but they preserve good digestion and gut health. Your great grandmother probably had batches of refrigerator pickles in her house and maybe a fermentation crock on the counter. - Cooking with real ingredients (from scratch)
The saddest thing I see these days is pre-prepared foods. No one really enjoys these; or they wouldn’t if they knew how good home cooking was. In the movie Kate and Leopold, Leopold says, “Where I come from, the meal is the result of reflection and study, menus are prepared in advance, timed to perfection. It is said, without the culinary arts the crudeness of reality would be unbearable.” One of my favorite quotes about food. Now I am not saying you should be preparing 4 course meals every night but real food tastes REAL GOOD! For more on this see 10 Amazing Reason to Cook from Scratch. - Cook with the basics (no fancy tools/appliances)
If you already cook from scratch but it takes 5 different appliances to do it…consider cooking with the basics. What about the vintage cooking skills that are done without electricity? No Kitchen Aid Mixer? Are you crazy? Maybe… But the people that know how to really whip up a meal sans the fancy tools are could be in high demand someday. Not to mention we would save a fortune not buying them, using electricity to power them and build us some serious muscle using the hand-powered tools! See Hand Powered Kitchen Tools Curing
By curing, for the purpose of this article, I’m referring to preserving meats and fish with salts, nitrates and smoking. I’ll be honest, this is a skill have have yet to acquire; but I’m working on it. It isn’t easy to find someone that has the set up for curing meats. Every time I think about meat curing I am reminded of the scene from Little House on the Prairie where they are preparing the pigs to go into the smoke house and the girls make a ball out of the pig bladder. Can you imagine modern kids putting down their phones or video game controllers to toss around a pig bladder? Sigh….I digress.- Cheese Making
Personally, among my vintage cooking skills or kitchen skills, cheese making is one of my favorites. There is nothing on the first bite of homemade ricotta or spreading your own chevre on a cracker. If you are raising dairy goats or cows this is probably something you’re already doing. But if you don’t have the space to raise your own, I highly recommend finding a good raw dairy (if that is legal in your area) and get a copy of Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. - Food Drying
If you start just by using a dehydrator to dry herbs, that is a great beginning. But I am going to suggest that you take is a step further and learn to dry without electricity or any appliance. You can sun dry, or hang dry or even use a solar oven. I talk a lot more about this in Drying Your Own Herbs but you should be trying out jerky, all natural fruit roll up and more.
BONUS – A few more Vintage Cooking Skills
Here are a few more terms / skills I see a lot of modern folks aren’t familiar with:
- Poaching – basically poaching is cooking an egg (without the shell) in or just over water. I love poached eggs – they take a little practice but it is so worth it.
- Braising – old cookbooks use this method a lot but I don’t see it much in the newer recipes. When braising you typically cook food at a high temp before covering and cooking it low and slow (usually meats).
- Roasting – is similar to baking but used to refer to cooking something over a flame. But it is using that hot air to crisp and caramelize foods with high but indirect heat. I have an awesome recipe for a roasted rabbit
- Blanching – mostly for vegetables, blanching involves quickly boiling a vegetable and then cooling or freezing it. Great for veggies you are going to store in the freezer, to retain flavor.
What an Awesome list! I have most of these skills mastered, the others I’m not sure I really want to master!
At one time I time I could clean a fish, but I’m not really interested in cleaning chickens or small game. As far as large animals are concerned, One of my sets of grandparents owned an actual working cattle ranch (with thousands of cattle), the ones that rarely exist today, and even they didn’t do their own butchering! They arranged with the local butcher for him to butcher a cow/steer and he kept half the meat as payment! They would tell him the cuts of meat they wanted, so many steaks, roasts, etc, lbs. of ground beef, and the like. They would take in the cow/steer, drop it off, when the beef was ready, they’d drive into town load up the truck with the wrapped meat, take it home and fill the freezer! My folks do the same thing even though they only raise a few beef at a time.
For brewing, we have bottled our own soda from scratch, but we don’t drink alcohol so I’ve never made beer or wine.
I learned to preserve food from my mother and grandmother. Methods they did not teach me I learned on my own. Cheesemaking and Fermenting have been my most recent adventures in the last 5 years or so.
I was surprised you didn’t have bread-making, sourdough keeping, or something along that line on your list.
When our children were young most of our vacations were camping, so I have had plenty of cooking over a fire experience! I even have a variety of Cast Iron Dutch Ovens with the inverted lids for placing coals on top for even cooking! What a dream for making bread, bisquits, cakes, even, meatloaf, roasts, stews, baked potatoes, or anything! And camping is the perfect time for our dried fruit made into granola, or on its own. I’m even well known for my tasty dried beef jerky!
Because we keep an Organic House/Kitchen we rarely use anything from a package, everything we make is from scratch! That’s how I taught my children to cook also! When they moved out, they all got copies of my basic recipes. Like biscuits, rolls, tortillas, gravy, brown and milk, basic sauces, family salads, like potato, macaroni, coleslaw, bean, cucumber, etc, I think you get the idea! Since they all knew how to cook, they didn’t starve when they went away to college.
One thing I do want to learn is how to cook in a solar oven, we need to get one first!
Another thing not on your list…meal planning, budgeting for meals, using leftovers, something along that line! Very important! Especially on a limited budget! Actually on any budget!
I was always taught that kitchen/homemaking skills well mastered would make me a better homemaker, mother and wife. I never aspired to be those things when I was young, I was going to be a big hot shot! I was going to make a name for myself! But when I got married and 2 years later had my first child I knew in my heart that the only job I wanted was mother, wife, and homemaker. I’m so grateful that my DH’s career allowed me to be a Stay- at-home mom. (I just didn’t realize that homemaker really meant about 30 different jobs! Chef, Housekeeper, chauffeur, waitress, plumber, gardner, window washer, you get the idea!)
These are great ideas! Although a couple are out of my realm!
I can do all of these except cure meat. I agree, even in this modern age, it’s important to know basics in the kitchen and in knowing where our food comes from. My daughter is 10 and she can make jams, bake, knit, clean, embroider… My boys know how to feed themselves, clean, take care of animals, milk a goat… If ever our modern society crumbles, I’m confident my family would do just fine but more than that, there’s a connection to our past that you can’t get from modern life. That connection is priceless.
Thanks… more and more with age, I am bringing vintage cooking into my life especially now that I only work part time.
I also want to leave that legacy behind for my children…