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