Jack Roaster
12" Long
4" at widest point
No Key
$225.00

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The Victorians used splendid brass clockwork jacks for spinning roasting joints of meat slowly round in front of a fire. These bottle jacks (named for their shape), or clock jacks, make fine antiques and are interesting to food historians, but we should not end up with the impression that this was the "normal" way of roasting meat in the 19th century, let alone before. It's true that clockwork bottle jacks gradually became more and more common for meat hung up to roast during the 18th and 19th centuries. By the later 19th century you could buy an iron bottle-jack for six shillings in England, the country where these were especially popular. This meant professional homes could afford one, but plenty of middle-class people managed with simpler methods of roasting, while clockwork jacks remained unaffordable for the working classes.