SC - Fire pit cooking

[Stefan li Rous]

Aengus MacBain did ask:
> 
> I have a bit of a delimma I was hoping you good folk could help me with. 
> Milady wife and I have taken an interest in cooking over an open fire. We 
> recently bought a spit however, we have no real idea how to cook with the 
> bloody thing. How does one gauge the height at which the food should be kept 
> from the fire? How do you interpret temperature on something as variable as 
> an open fire? Are there any books available on the subject or is this one of 
> those trial and error things?  Any assistance you could offer to pave our way 
> in the venue would be gratefully accepted.

I don't think we have talked that much about spit cooking, however open
fire cooking has been discussed some. The main thing I remember is that
if you use coals instead of open flame it is more steady and controllable.

You might find these files in the FOOD section of my Florilegium of some
help, although they may not answer your questions directly:
cook-ovr-fire-msg (46K)  3/ 3/00    Cooking over open fires. Outdoor feasts.
whole-pig-msg     (26K)  4/ 1/99    Info. on roasting a whole pig. Experiences.
  (this is much larger than I would recommend for a beginner, but some
of the
techniques talked about may be useful).

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****