Kiser House

Kiser is not displayed as a historic home, but a place to serve food. At the beginning of the 19th century, people didn’t cook in ovens. They had to cook over an open fire. This is called open-hearth cooking. We often have demonstrations of this in our McDonald House kitchens.

Southern Cooking would have been and still is, a blend of food cultures. Many dishes that we love today-such as barbeque-are a blend of African, European, and Native American culinary traditions. The main food products eaten in Georgia, whether free or enslaved, were corn and pork. Sweet potatoes and beans were also high on the list with a number of vegetables grown on a plantation or a homestead.

While Historic Westville is known for serving gingerbread and lemonade, these would not be items typically consumed in a rural town like Westville in the early to mid 19th century. Gingerbread was common in New England, not Georgia. The ingredients would have been difficult to grow here or expensive to purchase. Lemonade was slightly more common, but still only consumed perhaps once a year for very special occasions. As the century progressed, access to these items would have been more achievable as trade expanded and ingredients became cheaper. However, in order to honor Westville’s roots, we are planning on selling these food items to the public in this shop eventually.