Dutch Ovens or equivalent

[sally]

Many of us who do camp cooking of various datelines use Dutch Ovens/upturned pots/some other way of cooking bread without a proper oven, but I was wondering what actual evidence there was for such cooking methods. Not just in camp, but when you look at a lot of historic houses with large hearths but no oven, where this type of baking works particularly well for small items. I've seen curfews used as dutch ovens as well as for their proper purpose, but is that just a re-enactorism or is there evidence to support that?

I'm sure in towns buying your bread in was probably more normal throughout history, but what about the middling sized farmhouses, where there may not be evidence of an external oven, but where access to a baker may be limited.

Any thoughts or evidence one way or another?

[JC Milwr]

Jim the pot was demonstrating a portable oven at Berkeley. It was like a dutch oven, covered in daub and on a ladder trestle thing. I'm pretty sure he had evidence for it, so possibly worth contacting?
http://www.trinitycourtpotteries.co.uk/ ... t_home.htm

[Sophia]

At some point in the past I was talking to Jim and he mentioned that you can use a curfew (earthenware fire cover) to bake bread. Keep meaning to try it as I use one of his curfews on a regular basis for my kitchen. May try it this summer now I have a larger firebox which is a essentially a waist high (on me) cooking bench which I could run two fires on!

[Martin]

we have friends just outside Ludlow and built into their kitchen wall is a small bread oven, image Cosmestons one on a very small scale built into and interior wall, its undreds of years old apparently

[Lady Jane Rochester]

Jim was demonstrating a clome oven for which there is a lot of provenance. There are still clome ovens in quite a few old houses. If you google it (other search engines are available), you can see some in action.

Lady J

[Merlon.]

when you look at a lot of historic houses with large hearths but no oven, where this type of baking works particularly well for small items.

Surely that should be rephrased as historic houses with large hearths but no surviving ovens. The bread ovens survive in Haddon Hall and Gainsborough Hall, both cases of houses which were by passed by time and did not suffer "renovation and improvement" in later life. Carbrook Hall in Sheffield still has the remains of the bread ovens in the masonry sides of the chimney stacks. These were uncovered during refurbishment of the building in its later life as a pub.
There is evidence for the use of wheeled ovens in medieval manuscripts, such as http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7008536.JPG But even then I suspect most temporary bread ovens are dug into sloping ground for use in the field, this is cerrtainly true of the 17th and 18th century
The use of Dutch ovens and the very small portable cob (or cloam) ovens is a re-enactorism.

[sally]

Its the options for smaller households where a built in or separate overhouse isnt available that I'm most interested in. At St Fagans for example there is a Tudor farmhouse with a huge fireplace but no oven built in, and another slightly earlier one with a central hearth, and again, no provision for an oven. If a house like this was not in reach of a baker for regular supplies, for example, what options does one have for baking on the hearth, or does that simply not happen?

If baking under a curfew/pot/dudch oven is a re-enactorism, when is it first documented, its certainly recorded practice by the 19th century (there are descriptions of Pioneer families using Dutch ovens), anyone got any earlier references?

[Merlon.]

First reference to something called a Dutch Oven is:-
E. Raffald 'Experienced Eng. Housekeeper' (1778) P129 "Put them in a Dutch oven to brown."

The ability to create such a thing in iron does not occur until the end of the 16th century and iron does not really penetrate the domestic household until the early to mid 18th century when Abraham Darby starts bulk production of iron at Coalbrookdale.

Buildings in museums like St. Fagans and Weald and Avoncroft etc, are what you might term a bit suspect. The buildings have been moved to those sites from various locations. Before they were moved, obviously various changes may have taken place. When the Victorians put coal fired ranges into labourers cottages and farmhouses. many chimney stacks had to be "adjusted" to get them to fit. This may remove evidence of the existence of the ovens.

In the rural areas of France and Spain, there are surviving communal bread ovens example. These would allow economies of scale and fuel, for all we know might apply as well here.

In the 17th century America they were using cob ovens in shelters outside of their building for as much fire proofing as anything else. Such structures would leave minimal archaeological traces. example oven Plimoth plantation

[sally]

its not necessarily iron ones, though Dutch Ovens proper usually are. Its things like the use of a pottery curfew for cooking a few small loaves, which we know works really well, but was it ever really done? Or if you are doing griddle type breads, some benefit from 5 minutes with a cover over the plate to finish them gently. Was this just alien thinking a few hundred years ago?

[Martin]

on a side note, I discovered at Tewks that when Im doing the smoking demo, if I put my dutch oven on top of the charcoal and sawdust box, the very small amount of heat is enough to make a great roast beef with roast garlic bulbs over the day, it also does a roast chicken

[Merlon.]

Reenactors use the dutch oven or curfew method as it is convienient way to producing bread on the small scale needed for demonstration to the public.
Its not a fuel efficient manner of production -then again the majority of reenactor fires are not fuel efficient. Thats a relevant point in an era where you have to collect every ounce of fuel you use.

[sally]

Reenactors use the dutch oven or curfew method as it is convienient way to producing bread on the small scale needed for demonstration to the public.
Its not a fuel efficient manner of production -then again the majority of reenactor fires are not fuel efficient. Thats a relevant point in an era where you have to collect every ounce of fuel you use.

thats an excellent point and one I was overlooking

[Martin]

just out of interest how many "camp" kitchens would bother with an oven ? if your feeding troops on the move ( if that's the kind of out door LH cooking we're talking about lol) wouldn't flat bread and other breads that can be cooked on bake-stones ?

[Loaflady]

I go along with Merlon. I suspect that most larger properties would have had a separate bakehouse which might not survive. There are period depictions of smaller ovens on wheeled carts or stretchers, being used at fairs etc.
We have one we use at events. (It's actually a Jim the Pot clome oven covered with daub to look like the depictions.) Proportional to a large 'built-in' oven it takes a huge amount of time, trouble and fuel. We use ours to demonstrate the wood-fired cooking method, not to portray a 'profesional baker' set up. It would be much more cost-effective to buy your bread from a baker in the period and much like today most people would have bought their bread.
Haven't found references to what we would call 'griddle' baked breads, although it's likely they have ancient roots. It would make sense to cover them up to make them cook faster- saving on fuel and avoiding 'burnt bottoms'. Might also improve the rise too. Has anyone found any refs?
Now if anyone could put me in touch with a supplier of long stem grain sheaves ........!

[Sophia]

For the long stem grain sheaves you probably need to track down a thatcher who is using long wheat straw rather than reeds and then see if you can find out who supplies him as I know there are farmers who specifically grow old style of wheat and sell the straw onto thatchers. There was a thing in a recent Country Life about an guy who used to come to Kentwell and is a thatcher- someone stuck a photocopy up on the notice board at Kentwell when I was there. IIRC he works with long straw as it is traditional to the area he works in.

[Loaflady]

Thanks Sophia. That's the route I've been following. It's proved a bit pricier than I thought. A lot of people are strangely secretive about their sources!!

[Merlon.]

just out of interest how many "camp" kitchens would bother with an oven ? if your feeding troops on the move ( if that's the kind of out door LH cooking we're talking about lol) wouldn't flat bread and other breads that can be cooked on bake-stones ?

That would be a bannock style loaf. Now the OED defines a bannock as
"1. The name, in Scotland and north of England, of a form in which home-made bread is made; usually unleavened, of large size, round or oval form, and flattish, without being as thin as ‘scon’ or oat-cake. In Scotland, bannocks are usually of barley- or pease-meal, but may be of wheaten flour; in some parts a large fruit cake or bun of the same shape is called a currant-bannock. In north of England the name is sometimes given to oat- or haver-bread, when made thicker and softer than an oat-cake; but local usage varies. "

In a military sense the victuallers and purveyors from the time of Henry VII onwards (thats as early as I took my research) were engaged to provide bread or biscuit to troops. If the troops are making their own bread that would mean they were being supplied with flour. Trouble is flour is very easy to adulterate, if you supply troops with defective flour you will get a mutiny. If the flour is changed to bread or biscuit before issue then you can detect defective flour and thus remove one cause of mutiny.
I suspect that Sally question was aimed more generally though.

Now if anyone could put me in touch with a supplier of long stem grain sheaves ........!

Is that straw for fuel or grain to make the flour? If its the latter that some of the specialist flour mills can supply old varieties. Made a lot of bread with spelt flour a couple of years ago, quite tasty, but very heavy

[Mark Griffin]

somewhere I have a paper on temporary ovens, esp cob ones, often built roughly onto the outside of houses. My one here is a huge thing, good for baking small children, think its a 18th cent replacement of an earlier version. Works extremely well. Plently of pics of portable ovens, often german woodcuts etc.

[Sophia]

Is that straw for fuel or grain to make the flour? If its the latter that some of the specialist flour mills can supply old varieties. Made a lot of bread with spelt flour a couple of years ago, quite tasty, but very heavy

Trick with using older flour varieties is to use sourdough method or long fermentation method rather than modern short method. I regularly use the long method with involves starting by making a sponge and then double raising before shaping and proving (you can skip the sponge if you need to). One raising cycle should be overnight or at least 6 hours. If you follow this route you will need a very large bowl - one of the super big Mason Cash ones is good or you could use a big preserving pan.

Using the above method you can use as little at 1 oz of fresh yeast to raise 7lb of stoneground wholemeal flour - when I was a child in the 1970's this is exactly what my mother did every Monday (only kid in the village whose mother had a flour bin housing a hundredweight sack of flour in one corner of the kitchen). Mum used to start at about 9 o'clock and by supper time there would be fresh bread - what wasn't wanted immediately was frozen. We would always have a chance to make rolls during the school holidays. Interesting thing about this was that by the time I was about 8 I could make bread from scratch which came in very useful when I was a student in the 1980's and decent bread could not be had at a student friendly price - even now if you cost a big bag of organic flour, the yeast, oil, etc., plus the cost of running a gas oven against buying a loaf of luxury type bread it is still cheaper. Bread is a lot of time but very little actual work!

You should also bear in mind that most industrially made bread is cooked in steam ovens and has added flour improvers (starting with Vitamin C and moving on).

On the whole if you want a lighter loaf you need to sieve out the bran and wheatgerm which creates 85% flour (can also be bought online from places like the Watermill) this can be done on site by using a fine linen bag and is technically known as bolting. The "white" flour produced is suitable for making manchets/pain de main for the high table.

If you are making bread to bring to an event, please remember to match it to your station. Most men at arms would only have eaten brown bread, as the "white" bread was a luxury item. If dining as a group you may need to think in terms of high and low table.

Finally returning to the original question - I think that people are forgetting that you had to have some way of paying either for bread from the baker or for use of the manorial/village oven in the feudal period (banalities is the term for the tax IIRC). Baking at home was technically illegal under certain feudal rules, but probably widespread particularly in the later Medieval. After all you legally had to curfew (derived from French couvre feu) your fire so you had an excuse for owning a ceramic curfew which might occasionally have doubled as an oven.

[Loaflady]

Merlon - I was looking for sheaves to display the mixed subspecies and weeds as well as the actual length of the straw. Haven't found that straw works as a fuel in our oven - fine for lighting, though.
Older varieties are much softer from a gluten point of view, so the bread would be heavier, even if you were just using wheat. As suggested by Sophia, a longer rise will have a great effect on the gluten and also develop the flavour a lot more. Modern compressed yeast was obviously not available, making a long rising time necessary for the methods used.
Sophia - Have you tried Bacheldre Mill flour? That's good too. I also got some nice flour from Leatheringsett Mill in Norfolk when we were there on holiday a while back. I am an unashamed bread geek and greedy bread eater. Like you, my Mum made our bread ( you didn't have a smallholding in North Wales, did you?) and I make ours now. I have tried sourdoughs, but have yet to convert the family to the taste!

[Sophia]

Merlon - I was looking for sheaves to display the mixed subspecies and weeds as well as the actual length of the straw. Haven't found that straw works as a fuel in our oven - fine for lighting, though.
Older varieties are much softer from a gluten point of view, so the bread would be heavier, even if you were just using wheat. As suggested by Sophia, a longer rise will have a great effect on the gluten and also develop the flavour a lot more. Modern compressed yeast was obviously not available, making a long rising time necessary for the methods used.
Sophia - Have you tried Bacheldre Mill flour? That's good too. I also got some nice flour from Leatheringsett Mill in Norfolk when we were there on holiday a while back. I am an unashamed bread geek and greedy bread eater. Like you, my Mum made our bread ( you didn't have a smallholding in North Wales, did you?) and I make ours now. I have tried sourdoughs, but have yet to convert the family to the taste!

Not tried with of the mills you mentioned but there are so many

No based in Bath/Bristol area in 1970's - first we had a new build 3 bed terrace house with a veg garden instead of a front lawn plus an allotment, later we had house with large veg patch in back garden with half share of very small holding plus run down plum orchard 15 minutes walk away (co-holders were veggie so hens were kept for eggs and we got the boilers).

Mum only stopped baking regularly when we moved to Luxembourg in 1979 and finally had access to decent affordable bread, both French and German style (I still bring Kraftkornbrot (a wheat/rye sourdough with seeds in) back when we drive over).

On the sourdough front you could try a wheat/rye flour mix with a pure rye starter as this often comes out sweeter. Also try putting honey in the mix instead of sugar when you make the dough up as the flavour lingers with suggests sweetness to people.

For long proving breads like sourdough I have invested in cane proving baskets which are absolutely brilliant -also good for reenacting purposes as they give a nice traditional shape.

[bonnacon]

Talk to John Letts, or oxford bread group. He is raising rivet .... which is used for manchet and ships biscuits...he has the thatching wheat as well

[scryvener]

Hi Pam & I have just been round the museum of London ,in the Medieval gallery is a beutiful oven sure there is some picies on their site. Alex

[sally]

Hi Pam & I have just been round the museum of London ,in the Medieval gallery is a beutiful oven sure there is some picies on their site. Alex

this one?
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explor ... &id=131783

[scryvener]

YES.....it's really fab, and with experimenting it could be with a fire underneath or inside, surely ideal for outside demo's yours aye Alex

[sally]

Just found a reference to add to the debate. This is from 'A Booke of Cookerye' 1591, and as part of the directions for making marchpane it instructs us to bake it under an upturned pot:

lay [a] lattin Basin over it the bottome upwarde, and lay burning coles upon the bottom of the basin... and thus with attending ye shall bake it a little more than quarter of an houre

so there seems to be no doubt that the concept of baking something small under an upturned pot is known at that date, even if its not the solid iron or clay pots that we tend to see in a LH context.

[Dave B]

Just digging this thread up again, as we think about gearing up for things to do in the forthcoming season.

I think Sally's description, as its the earliest one I've heard of, would be well worth trying.

we we've got a basin, which I guess is a ceramic thing, upside down over the thing being cooked.

does anyone know what this basin would have looked like (any finds of medieval pottery basins for example)

and does anyone have any speculation on what the thing would have been laid on - on the ground the heat would be drawn away I'd guess, on wood it might char and spoil the food, perhaps on a flat stone?

any other thoughts?

[Merlon.]

The lattin referred to in Sally quote will be a copper alloy or "brass" dish. You could use pot just have to watch out for the thermal stess cracks so you don't loose your food.
No idea as to the shape though.

[Dave B]

Ah yes, the different spelling of Latten threw me. I guess there are good sources for Latten basin / bowl shapes in the MOL medieval household book, although only fragments survive. shame that no-one (as far as I know) makes them. sort of like a brass balti dish IIRC, but thin with a reinforced rim.

Dave.

[guthrie]

Ah yes, the different spelling of Latten threw me. I guess there are good sources for Latten basin / bowl shapes in the MOL medieval household book, although only fragments survive. shame that no-one (as far as I know) makes them. sort of like a brass balti dish IIRC, but thin with a reinforced rim.

Dave.

I've been asking around. None of the makers of stuff that I've spoken to have been enthusiastic. Part of the problem being that hammering a sheet of copper into a basin is time consuming and hard work and thus expensive. Spinning might work.

Latten in modern research means a copper- zinc alloy, with or without tin and lead. If cast, it usually contains lead and tin with the main part being copper and some zinc, if beaten it will be copper and zinc alone. The term is more 14th and 15th century, falling out of use in the post medieval period.