Earth oven

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A Samoan umu at the early stage of heating the rocks
A Samoan umu at the early stage of heating the rocks

An earth oven or cooking pit is one of the most simple and long-used cooking structures. At its simplest, an earth oven is simply a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake or steam food. Earth ovens have been used in many places and cultures in the past, and the presence of such cooking pits is a key sign of human settlement often sought by archaeologists, and remain a common tool for cooking large quantities of food where no equipment is available.

To bake food, the fire is built, then allowed to burn down to a smolder, and the food is placed in the oven and covered (this can be used for bread-baking, for example, and has been used in some cultures for soldiers on military expeditions). Steaming is similar; fire-heated rocks in a pit are covered with green vegetation, large quantities of food, more green vegetation (and sometimes water), and then a final covering of earth. Food takes several hours to cook whether by dry or wet methods.

Today, many communities still use cooking pits, at least for ceremonial or celebratory occasions: the Hawaiian luau, Māori hāngi and the New England clam bake. The central Asian tandoor, used primarily for uncovered, live-fire baking, is a transitional design between the earth oven and the horizontal-plan masonry oven, essentially a permanent earth oven made out of clay or firebrick with a constantly burning, very hot fire in the bottom. In modern times, earth ovens are sometimes used for outdoor cooking and recreational meals in lieu of an open campfire.

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[edit] Americas

In many areas archeologists recognise "pit-hearths" as being in common use in the past. In Central Texas there are large "burned-rock middens" apparently used for large-scale cooking of plants of various sorts, especially the bulbs of sotol. The Mayan pib and Andean watia are other examples.

The clambake, invented by Native Americans on the Atlantic seaboard and considered a traditional element of New England cuisine, traditionally uses a type of ad hoc earth oven (usually built in beach sand with heated rocks to retain heat and seaweed to add moisture) to cook shellfish and vegetables.

[edit] Middle East/North Africa

Earth oven cooking is sometimes used for celebratory cooking in North Africa, particularly Morocco; a whole lamb is cooked in an earth oven (called a tandir, etymologically related to the central Asian tandoor and possibly descended from an Akkadian word tinuru) in a manner similar to Hawaiian kalua pig. In Greek cuisine, there is also a tradition of kleftiko ("thief style") dishes, ascribed to anti-Turkish partisans during the Greek war for independence, which involve wrapping the food in clay and cooking in a covered pit, allegedly at first to avoid detection by Turkish forces.

[edit] The Pacific

Earth oven cooking was very common in the past and continues into the present - particularly for special occasions.

In the closely-related Polynesian languages the general term is "umu" or similar - the Tongan 'umu, Māori umu or hāngi, Hawaiian imu, Samoan 'umu, Cook Island umu. In non-Polynesian parts of the Pacific, languages are more diverse so each language has its own term - in Fiji it's a lovo and in Rotuman it's a koua. (In Papua New Guinea, "mumu" - borrowed from Polynesian, is used by Tok Pisin and English speakers, but each of the other hundreds of local languages has its own word.)

Despite the similarities, there are many differences in the details of preparation, their cultural significance and current usage.

[edit] Samoan Umu

The Samoan umu uses the same method of cooking, but is generally done above-ground rather than in a pit. It is a common day-to-day method of preparing roasted foods with modern ovens being restricted to western style houses. In the traditional village house, gas burners will be used inside the house to cook some food in pots. The umu is sheltered by a roof in case of rain and is separate from the house. There are no walls which allows the smoke from the cooking to escape.

The Samoan umu starts with a fire to heat rocks which have been tested by fire and which have not exploded. These rocks are used repeatedly but eventually are discarded and replaced when it is felt that they no longer hold enough heat. Once the rocks are hot enough they are stacked around the parcels of food which are wrapped in banana leaves or aluminium foil. Leaves are then placed over the assembly and the food is left to cook for a few hours until it is cooked.


[edit] Britain

Although not believed to be common in Britain earth ovens were used from the Neolithic period onwards with examples from this period found at the sites of Rinyo and Links of Notland on Orkney [1] but are more commonly known in the Bronze and Iron Ages from sites such as Trethellan Farm and Maiden Castle, Dorset. Examples from these periods vary in form but are generally bowl-shaped and shallow in depth (30-45cm) with diameters between 0.5-2 meters.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Renfrew, J 2005

[edit] References

  • "The Roasted and the Boiled: Food Composition and Heat Treatment with Special Emphasis on Pit-Hearth Cooking" (1997). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16 (1): 1–48. 
  • Brennan, Jennifer (2000), Tradewinds & Coconuts: A Reminiscence & Recipes from the Pacific Islands, Periplus, pp. 127-134, ISBN 9625938192 
  • Lewin, J.G (2006), How To Feed An Army: Recipes and Lore from the Front Lines, New York: Collins, ISBN 9780060891114 
  • Renfrew, Jane (2005), Prehistoric Cookery: recipes and history, English Heritage 

[edit] External links

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