Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lorn
Speaker 1: vogelbaumb Here. During the fifteen hundreds, dogs were more than
Speaker 1: just companions. There was a dog breed for nearly everything,
Speaker 1: the herding sheep, tracking wild game, and even warming up
Speaker 1: cold laps on chilly days. But in Wales and beyond,
Speaker 1: there was a dog that found a role in the
Speaker 1: kitchens of homes large and small. He was known as
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog or spit dog. They had long, stocky
Speaker 1: bodies and short legs, and their job was to turn
Speaker 1: the wooden wheel that would spin the roasting spit in
Speaker 1: the hearth before the arrival of the automated roasting spit.
Speaker 1: Open fire roasting meant that the spit had to be
Speaker 1: cranked continually by hand for evenly cooked meat. The task
Speaker 1: often fell to the lowest ranking member of a kitchen staff,
Speaker 1: as it was miserable work. That is, until someone figured
Speaker 1: out that you could make a dog do it. The
Speaker 1: small cooking dog was bred to run on a wheel
Speaker 1: like a hamster wheel. There was attached to a chain
Speaker 1: that would turn the roasting spit. This canine innovation was
Speaker 1: hailed as a major life improvement The first mention of
Speaker 1: the turnspit dog dates from fifteen seventy six, in the
Speaker 1: earliest book on dogs in the English language, called of
Speaker 1: English Dogs. And the turnspit dog wasn't just popular in Britain.
Speaker 1: Their breeding continued for a few centuries, and they made
Speaker 1: the trek from Great Britain to North America. Since they
Speaker 1: were pandy for more than just roasting meat, they were
Speaker 1: also used for other domestic tasks like churning butter, pressing fruits,
Speaker 1: pumping water, and milling grain. However, they never gained the
Speaker 1: same popularity here. In kitchens, turnspit dogs wheels were mounted
Speaker 1: high up on the wall and well away from the
Speaker 1: fire to prevent them from overheating, but it still would
Speaker 1: have been exhausting work. The dogs were considered machinery, not
Speaker 1: pets because it was so labor intensive. Many turnspit dogs
Speaker 1: would work in pairs, trading off on the meat spinning
Speaker 1: hamster wheel, and some think that that tag team is
Speaker 1: the origin of the phrase every dog has his day.
Speaker 1: Later on, in the eighteen fifties, the dog's treatment in
Speaker 1: Manhattan hotel kitchens partially inspired the founding of the Society
Speaker 1: for the Prevention of cruelty to animals. A back in
Speaker 1: Britain on Sundays, the dogs may have gotten a bit
Speaker 1: of a break when their owners took them to church.
Speaker 1: They were considered useful as footwarmers too. The dogs were
Speaker 1: popular there for centuries a. Shakespeare and Darwin both wrote
Speaker 1: about them. In seventeen fifty, there were turnspit dogs everywhere
Speaker 1: in Britain, but by eighteen fifty they were hard to find,
Speaker 1: and by nineteen hundred that all but disappeared, mostly because
Speaker 1: of the invention of spit turning machines called clock jacks.
Speaker 1: This new technology ultimately unleashed turnspits and led to the
Speaker 1: breed's extinction. With the invention of these cheap spit turning machines,
Speaker 1: the small dogs just weren't needed anymore. Owning one became
Speaker 1: a sign of poverty, and the dogs have been bred
Speaker 1: to work, not to be cute or have fun dispositions.
Speaker 1: No one really wanted to keep them as pets, so
Speaker 1: today the turnspit dog is extinct. The only one that
Speaker 1: survives is in a hunting lodge in an ancient Norman
Speaker 1: castle in Wales. Granted, this one isn't working in the kitchens.
Speaker 1: She's a taxidermy to turnspit dog named Whiskey. Her closest
Speaker 1: dog relative is likely the Welsh Corgi, the pampered pooch
Speaker 1: of the late Queen Elizabeth. The second Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Turnspit Dogs the Elizabethan Kitchen gadget
Speaker 1: bread to cook meat on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by
Speaker 1: Kristen Conger. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership of
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler klang A.
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