SC - kitchen in a krak

[Christina van Tets]

Hello again!

Regarding my visit to a krak:

I asked:

><< why would there be a small, very hot room for the
>  open fire?  >>
>

Ras asked:
>To raise the dough?
>

Well, it's nice to know we came up with the same suggestion - mine also 
included brewing - having carried the vat around the garden in winter trying 
to get enough sun into it to get it fermenting, I'd love to have a nice warm 
room for that kind of thing, but what kind of use could that room have in 
summer, apart from torturing recalcitrant kitchen hands?  Curdling milk for 
cheese?

and Margali asked:
>
>Krak de Chevaliers?

Heck no.  I wish.  No, that'll have to wait until I get a new passport so 
the Syrians don't have conniptions at my Israeli visa.

>
>It could be that they had a light plank roof or a canvas roof, enough to 
>keep
>the sun off and any occasional rain, but left mostly open to let the heat 
>escape
>up and away from the workers?
>margali
>

That's quite possible.  There isn't much of the roof left at Belvoir;  the 
castle was deliberately made unusable (it was supposed to have been 
completely dismantled, but you know what soldiers are like when the CO is 
not looking) after the Crusaders were forced to leave.  They held out for 18 
months before being undermined, and in honour they were allowed safe passage 
_with_ their arms back to Acre.  The castle was supposed to have been 
destroyed so that no-one else could use it to hold out again.  Anyway, some 
of the living quarters and a storeroom or two have rooves, but nothing else. 
  So quite reasonable thought.  Short chimney though - it looks untouched by 
the wreckers - wouldn't a roof like that have caught fire?  Maybe not, if 
the fires are only in the ovens.

Cairistiona
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com