[Sca-cooks] glossary

[johnna holloway]

 "Cindy M. Renfrow" wrote:> >
> > Here are some more words to mull over & define.
 Please remember I need> sources, too!>
> > Regards, > Cindy
>
> >
> > Still room

Still Room or Stillroom or Still-room which is how it is found in OED.

It comes from as one might suspect from distillation, ie stills,
and was the room where the still was kept. One kept a still because
a household and especially the mistress of a household would
work upon the distillation of perfumes and cordials. And it was
also the room in which she might make her various preserves,
comfits,  and confections. Later, cakes and liqueurs, etc. might
be kept there and even tea and coffee, etc. prepared therein.

OED only traces it back to c1710 with quotation
C. 1710 Celia Fiennes Diary (1888) 299 On one side is a building,
 a summer parlour for a still room.
1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. 1698 A door in the housekeeper's room
 should open into the still-room, in which the
 housekeeper, assisted by the still-room maid, would make preserves,
cakes, &c;
1858 Thackeray Virgin. xlv, A hundred years ago, every lady in the
 country had her still-room, and her medicine-chest,
her pills, powders, potions, for all the village round.

But its use is much earlier than that. Markham includes a
chapter "Of Distillations" in The English Housewife and
Michael Best includes a picture of the title-page to
The Accomplished Lady's Delight in Preserving... which
shows a 2 women at work in a still-room. Markham does not
seem to use the word "stillroom" in that section.
C. Anne Wilson in her essay "Water of Life" traces
domestic distilling in the houses of the gentry in England
to the mid-16th century.  See Liquid Nourishment. Food and Society 5.
1993.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis