I can’t even remember where I read it — in my research of 18th century Highland home life, somewhere I came across a description of meat roasting over a fire with a dog turning the spit. Huh. A dog?
By this time I had developed an idea of the cooking fires in Highlander homes. Some were set in the middle of the room, the peat smoke rising up to a hole in the center of a conical roof. Alternatively, there would be a fire place at the end of a room, the smoke going up some kind of hood or chimney.
Living history exhibit at Highland Folk Museum, Newtonmore, UK
Photo by Claire Gebben
A turnspit dog at work in a wooden cooking wheel, Newcastle, Carmarthen, Wales, in 1869.
Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images
Can you even see it? Up there near the ceiling? Apparently the dog is so far from the fire to avoid overheating or fainting from exertion, but still, their lungs filled daily with smoke.
Turnspits were bred for this specific work, the breed canis vertigus. By all accounts, they’re now extinct. You can read more about the dogs and their centuries of toil here.