Saturday, April 19, 2008

Acoma Pueblo Mud Oven




Note how beautifully the oven integrates with the building.
http://www.smu.edu/isem/Hummingbird/July22/july22.html

The photo that shows the oven door is from:
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1498197544077997123EcPCFA


Not sure where these hornos are from

Bread Ovens Iraq






Najaf Mud Oven
A displaced Iraqi woman cooks in a mud oven in a camp for displaced people in the central Shiite holy city of Najaf, 20 July 2007. About 9000 Iraqi families fled to the central city most of them from Baghdad, where they search for safety in camps for displaced people according to official sources from Najaf. The sources said that the increasing numbers of displaced people who are converging to the city's camps will soon suffer from a shortage of food and water supplies.

Photo from Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images


Baghdad Mud Oven


A woman bakes bread known locally as "Khobez" using a traditional mud oven in a village in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad August 20, 2007.
Photo from Reuters Pictures.

Iraqi woman and her bread oven

Posted by Brian Jones, Wednesday, October 15, 2003

"Bread is eaten every day in Iraq. In cities people either buy it directly from bakers or mix their own dough and take it to the baker for cooking. In the villages you have to make your own bread every day. People use the tanour, the traditional bread oven, to make their bread. It's fired up with dried cow dung called Mutaal and the dough is slapped between the hands until it becomes a wide round flat pancake before being slapped onto the inside wall of the tanour where it's cooked. It's incredibly good and there is nothing quite like the taste of fresh bread anywhere but particularly here."

New Zealand Masonry Oven



It's impossible to not be stunned by the contrast between these ovens and, for example, the one in Timbuktu.


Oven by Ben Woollcombe

bensart1.homestead.com/breadovens.html

London Mud Ovens


Here are some temporary, very funky, mud ovens that were made in
Brockwell Park, South London for an urban green fair in 2007.
Note how the ovens are sitting on plywood supported by concrete block. Even the ubiquitous blue tarp is present to protect the grass.
Urban Green Fair 2007

Pakistan Mud Oven


Girl makes nan bread in mud oven. Maybe the rooster has it all figured out, but it appears that the oven is just beneath a culvert pipe. Not a very good arrangement, but perhaps that was the only possibility.
"Omaha Rapid Response sent a team in March to the northwest tribal areas of Pakistan, up in the mountains, to continue the ongoing relief effort we have been supporting there. Our primary efforts included the purchasing and distributing of over 6,000 fruit trees, chickens and chicken cages, which allow these people to grow food and generate income. ORR isn't just giving food, we are helping these people grow their own." Apparently this photo was taken by someone from Omaha Rapid Response.

Moroccan Mud Oven - Outside of Casablanca



Interesting video of Moroccan woman firing her oven with hay and making flatbreads.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=o9qJbengCdk

Friday, April 18, 2008

Matza



Photos by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

An Orthodox man is employed to inspect the process of baking of unleavened bread (Matza) for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover in a religious community near Kiryat Gat April 13, 2008.

Women at a bakery near Kiryat Gat kneaded dough for unleavened bread for Passover. A judge has ruled that leavened bread can be sold during Passover.
To read the article, go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/middleeast/18israel.html

Note how the bottom of the oven opening is expanded, allowing ample room to slide the matzas in and out. These matzas look nothing like the packaged stuff found in U.S. stores.

The yellow photo shows matzas being made in Chicago.
Yehonaton Levy removes baked matzo from the oven at Chicago’s Shmura Matzah Factory in Skokie, Ill.
Knight Ridder Tribune photo
archive.seacoastonline.com/.../it/97316.htm


Thursday, April 17, 2008

Yukon Oven


No matter how obscure the place, in fact the more obscure the better, you're sure to find an earth oven.
Date: ca. 1930
Fonds/Collection: Claude and Mary Tidd fonds
Photographer: Claude Tidd
Format: b&w print
Original Size: 7 x 10 cm
Subject Headings:
Camp - Pelly River area

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Flatbreads




Here's a baker in Amman taking a flatbread from the side of the oven where it has baked.
The golden looking flatbreads are from Khotan, and the flatbreads with tea pots are from Uyghur.
How's your geography?

Timbuktu, Mali Mud Oven

www.britannica.com/ebc/art-17334/Woman-baking...

Note how beautifully this astonishing landscape is integrated. The oven, the peel, the woman, the breads. It would be hard for one to improve upon the tableau.



As long as we're in exotic areas of the world, here are some oven photos in
Timbuktu Mali
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/art-17334

Gas Oven?




Here are three photos from a bakery in Uzbekistan. I couldn't figure out who took the photos, but here's what the photographer said: They basically mold out the non (I think it's a typo and he or she means "nan." into a disc and slap it up into the inside of a beehive shaped oven, where it sticks until it is done. Then you collect your fresh hot bread!
I think the masonry oven is fired with gas, not wood. If you look closely you should be able to see gas tubes. I don't see any ashes or any trace of wood.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Oven Bases



Oven bases can be made from rock, block, brick, mud, or as we have seen, ovens can be built directly on the earth. In these photos you'll see two ovens, one built on logs and the other built on saw horses.
Unless your oven floor is well insulated, it is possible to char oven bases made of wood.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Jamestown Oven


In this oven a Jamestown woman baked bread over 300 years ago. It appears to have been in use between 1650 and 1690.

Oven height #4


This low oven looks like it contributes to back strain.

Correct Baking Height #3


Who says there is a "correct" baking height.
This oven could be built in a couple of hours.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Correct Baking Height #2



Quick improvisation to get young lady up high enough to bake.