Good Morning Darlings!
Did you name that thing? One of you did? Who was it?
Melanie guessed it was a spitjack – and she was right! Smart Lady!
This is a spitjack. Melanie nabbed it!
During the late medieval period and Renaissance, various clockwork spit-turning mechanisms started to appear in European kitchens. The earliest kind was the counterweight jack, a device which worked on a similar principle to a grandfather clock. A heavy weight hanging from a rope rotated a drum and turned a simple clockwork movement which in turn rotated a pulley. A chain attached to the pulley drove a drive wheel on the end of the spit. These were made by blacksmiths rather than clockmakers and seem to have arrived in England in the late sixteenth century.
Now you know!
xoxo, Patti
Today blogging to Carole King – Smackwater Jack