We've plenty o' water the dryest times, when everybody else's goes dry." "That IS delicious water," said Harry.
"An' now I'll git ye yor breakfast in a minnit.

The teakittle's a-bilin', the coffee's ground, the pone's done, an' when I fry a little ham, everything will be ready." As her culinary methods and utensils differed wholly from anything Harry had ever seen, he studied them with great interest sharpened not a little by a growing appetite for breakfast.
The clumsy iron teakettle swung on a hook at the end of a chain fastened somewhere in the throat of the chimney.

On the rough stones forming the hearth were a half-dozen "ovens" and "skillets"-- circular, cast-iron vessels standing on legs, high enough to allow a layer of live coals to be placed beneath them.

They were covered by a lid with a ledge around it, to retain the mass of coals heaped on top.

The cook's scepter was a wooden hook, with which she moved the kettles and ovens and lifted lids, while the restless fire scorched her amrs and face ruddier than cherry.
It was a primitive way, and so wasteful of wood that it required a tree to furnish fuel enough to prepare breakfast; but under the hands of a skillful woman those ovens and skillets turned out viands with a flavor that no modern appliance can equal.
The joists of the house were thickly hung with the small delicious hams of the country--hams made from young and tender hogs, which had lived and fattened upon the acorns, fragrant hickory-nuts and dainty beechnuts of the abundant "mast" of the forest, until the were saturated with their delicate, nutty flavor.