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Below are various photographs (my apologies if some of them are not
horizontal---I haven't sorted that out yet). These pictures are of
my crew as they built an excellent rendition of a beehive oven for
use at an SCA event. I wanted the oven, partly as an experiment in
period baking techniques, but also to provide the bread for an early
Irish feast we were planning. As you can see, the oven was a smashing
success.
We used field stone from a local stone wall (indigenous stone to
N.E. Pa, USA), which is relatively flat and somewhat uniformly
shaped. It was thus easy to arrange the stone into shapes that
would work well as our round oven. On advice from another 'oven
expert', we used a 14" clay flower pot as the top half of the
oven rather than stone. In retrospect, the stone corbelled nicely
and we will probably use all stone next year. The photos below show
the stages of the oven building process which, all in all, took
about 3 hours to build. While some folks use a huge layer of clay
or mud as insulation, this was not available to us. Instead we used
the sod we cut from the fire pits. As an insulator it worked quite
well so long as we ensured that the chinks were all filled in with
dirt between the stone (dirt excavated from the fire pits and the
oven floor). A large stone was found to use as a hearthstone, and
this proved to be the perfect touch, ensuring our success.
How to fire and use an earthen oven:
Use kindling to start a small fire inside the oven. Chop firewood
into slim, short pieces and use these to build a quick, hot fire.
Keep this fire going fairly strong (fire shooting out the top hole
(if you have one) is appropriate so long as you do not set the camp
on fire! We pre-heated the oven for the length of time it took the
bread to go through 2 risings on a chilly day (about 3 hours). By
this time we judged it had stored enough heat to bake our bread.
The fire was shovelled out and the ashes swept out quickly, and the
loaves were placed in side. The oven was sealed with a rock door
that had also been pre-heated (use thick leather gloves to handle
large, hot rocks!). The bread baked in the expected amount of time.
The oven had to go through another brief firing in order to bake a
second batch.
Why bother? I hypothesized that when the oven used was different
from our modern ovens, the end product would be different from bread
baked in a modern oven. I was absolutely correct, and don't mind if
I seem silly when I brag about it. You see, bread baked in such a
manner has a rougher crust, and retains some of the flavor of the
woodsmoke. Nothing I can describe to you can impart the experience
of a wholemeal loaf baked with fruitwood or maplewood smoke. You
simpy must experience it some time in your life!
In the pictures of this oven, you will notice my architects:
Gerhardt (in black, an invaluable historic cook), Val (baseball cap),
my SCA son and general bad-boy-with-a-good-heart, known to be game
for any of my cooking adventures,and Hans (blonde ponytail--who knew
a jeweler could also work with stone?). My undying thanks go to them
for a job well done.
For questions or comments feel free to contact me at liontamr@ptd.net
Resources: The Regia Anglorum web page (linked elsewhere in my pages),
and the book BREAD AND SALT, detailing food history in Russia and
slavic countries. There is some excellent information about oven
construction there. The library of Congress Web page search engines
should be able to locate the ISBN number for you for the use of
locating the book through Inter-library Loan or at the bookstore.
Sincerely,
Aoife
