Cooking pots!

Yeah, yeah, so I needed another activity.  Like a hole in the head.  I've always liked cooking, particularly as a preface to **eating**, but as there's lots of hospitality in the SCA, I put my first efforts into clothes (and clothes, and clothes), activities, and camp gear.  But now that I'm pretty much dressed and housed, and certainly entertained, I can start contributing to hospitality.

At Gatalop, Randver and I geeked with potter Mistress Kiara about her cooking vessels.  I'd seen a bread oven of her crafting at Baroness Mairie Ceilidh's, who is a cooking laurel, and a recurrent patron of Kiara's pottery.  Here it is:

That's my size 8 foot next to it, for scale.  I'd guess it's about 18" tall.  The idea is, you put hot coals in the hole in the base...

 

And put the bread in the top part.  The handle on the lid is a tube, to let some steam out, but not all.  Apparently these guys were found in Pompeii by the thousands.

I admired another cooking vessel at MC's, and turned it over to find Kiara's mark again...

Isn't this a lovely mixing bowl?  And it's green to boot.  Here's a closeup of the handle...

(That's Baron Romas cooking onions in the background, with an excellent shirt.)

Comments

[Oswald the Silent]

That's awesome! My first exposure to the sca was on a news report. Cooking is what pulled me to the SCA, then I saw folks hitting each other with sticks...rest was history lol! As age continues to creep up, cooking has also entered back into my plans...just not crickets!

Oswald the Silent

[Ann]

OK--I have various clay pieces that fit into the oven for breadbaking, and I've built a clay bread oven in the yard--and I have real modern cooking equipment, so there is no reason for me to want a clay bread oven.

But man, I envy that bread oven!! It's just so graceful looking. I love the idea of it. Bet it makes bread with that lovely crackling crust . . .

[Odry24Yn]

I constantly buy an essay or term paper about this topic.

[Ann]

OK--I built one (large flowerpot, half-sphere flowerpot, a couple of bases, and a hacksaw . . .

Sort of works--need to try it again when this cold snap is over. But it raises questions--why such a small oven. It's really not fuel efficient--even Kiara's, which has thicker walls than mine, is nothing like the 6-8 inch (or more) walls of a real clay or brick oven, and doesn't have the mass for heat retention.

A friend got interested and did some quick research--all he found were traditional ovens. He is wondering, if there were so many of them, if they were braziers instead. Sort of like a chiminea--just to warm up the place a little, rather than being used for cooking?

Do you have any documentation from Kiara? I'd be interested.

And happy 2010!

--Ann

[Sarah]

Wow - good for you!

I did see documentation from Kiara, one important point is that the replica is half-sized.  Another is that they found thousands of these things, all lined up, in Pompeii.  If that was a bakery (again, quoting others research, not mine, so Im rather lost in the context), then the ambient temp would have been higher in the building (if it was in a building), which would help hold heat.  Apparently bread was found inside them.

The photos I saw from Kiara had a different coal hole - more of a tray, like an automatic pet feeder.  This enables scooting of the coals in and out.  I read in a cast-iron cooking essay that each coal is about 10dF, so you need twenty five under and over your pot to bake at 250dF...Im wondering how they got the overhead heat, or perhaps the crockery is better than iron for heat retention...unknown.

[Lawrence Halter]

That's hardcore cooking from the Bronze Age, hehe. I love dishes cooked in earthen pots. They taste very different from those being cooked in metal pots. Because of their slow cooking time and low heat, dishes cook longer. But you can be sure that they will taste wonderful.