SC - Spits (was: The Kitchen article)

[grizly at mindspring.com]

Now THAT is a pice of information/documnentation that I find incredibly useful!!  Thank you so much for sending it out.  I'm still using my ash pole until it wears out, but now I know I should go to a steel or iron rig when it does go.

niccolo difrancesco

sca-cooks at ansteorra.org wrote:
<<<SNIP???ze of the beast covering the pole.
>Less heat on wood and longer durability of spit.  This does not say that >iron was not used, only that my experience and observation indicates that wood is durable >>>

On that subject from Chiquart (_Du Fait de Cuisine_, 1420):

  And one should definitely not trust wooden spits, because they will 
rot and you could lose all your meat, but you should have one hundred 
and twenty iron spits which are strong and are thirteen feet in 
length; and there should be other spits, three dozen which are of the 
aforesaid length but not so thick, to roast poultry, little piglets, 
and river fowl. And also, four dozen little spits to do endoring and 
act as skewers.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook