Johnnycakes sizzled on the griddle hung above a roaring fire as children cored and chopped apples for applesauce. Bowls of water sat on a sideboard, the colonial equivalent of a sink. Churning butter, mixing cornmeal with salt, sniffing cinnamon sticks, they got a feel for life in the 1700s, starting with learning that in colonial times, recipes were called receipts.
"Has anyone ever tasted johnnycakes before?" asked museum teacher Robin Bach before they began.
Heads shook in response.
Bach held up a cup and a spoon, the tools that were used for dispensing ingredients.
"How do you measure with that?" asked a skeptical Lauren Jacobs, 8.
"You have to guess," answered Bach.
Though the experience was mostly authentic, there were concessions to the modern lifestyle. The johnnycake griddle was greased with Crisco, not animal lard. And the reproduction kitchen is climate-controlled.
Still, the air conditioning and ventilation does not ward off the hazards of open-lame cooking.
"Every now and then, one of our skirts catches on fire," said Noah Webster House Director of Education Jennifer Matos.
A cup of cornmeal and a pinch of salt from a reproduction Colonial saltbox later, the ingredients were mixed in a red clay bowl and dropped onto the griddle. As they cooked, Bach told the children about life in Noah Webster's day in the West Division of Hartford, as West Hartford was known.
They learned that the Sunday night wafers they would later make - a dessert that tastes like a soft waffle cone, made with a long, tong-like instrument, the Colonial version of a waffle iron - were a rare treat, since it took the scarce ingredient - sugar - to sweeten them.
Girls would have sewn their first dress by age 10, Bach said. And their duties included milking the cows and weeding out the bad apples from the barrels in the cellar - not tasks likely to be part of today's child's chores.
Some of the children were familiar with cooking, however. "I make lots of things with my mom," said Olivia Sutkaitis, 7, citing salad and brownies as examples.
Meanwhile, Jacobs eyed a broom leaning in a corner of the room. It was made of a large stick, with smaller sticks tied to the bottom with twine.
"I'm wondering how you would sweep with that," she said.