[Sca-cooks] Pottery for Cooking/Eating

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hiya!

I routinely use pottery in my period encampment. There is a wonderful local
SCA potter who makes the worlds cutest pipkins (the little three footed
clay pots with handles) and I'm currently "UL testing" one of them for her
(ie being really mean to it...how much can it handle?). You can also buy
extensively field tested pipkins and pots copied from extant examples from
Historic Enterprises online (www.historicenterprises.com).

I've found they work great even directly in the fire if you do the following:
1. make your fire. Let it get to coals.
2. Stick your pipkin right next to the fire
3. after a bit, go ahead and move it in closer if you need to.

the clay is fired under VERY hot temperatures and didnt discomboobleate
then, so it can easily handle the temps from a cooking fire, but introduce
it gradually and let it cool gradually (ie dont drop it super hot into cold
water). I usually end up with mine nestled very happily in the middle of
the glowing coal bed, but only after a gradual introduction. It transmits
and retains heat really well, so you dont usually even need to get it in
the red hot zone!

what would break it, I think, is the sudden shock. Give it time to get used
to the heatn and you should be fine!

--Anne-Marie, who thinks nothings better for camp fondue than a clay pipkin :)

At 07:40 AM 5/21/01 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 05/21/2001 12:16:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>stefan at texas.net writes:
>
><< whereas the pottery
> pots couldn't be. They had to be put on coals? or next tot he fire? >>
>
>As clay (even fired clay) heats...the molecules expand (it's more complex
>than that..but "expand" should suffice for here)...and if they expand at
>different rates...i.e.: the bottom of the pot (on the heat) and the top (not
>on the heat)..the vessel will explode!(or at the very least..crack)   So...no
>intense direct heat to any one surface of a pottery vessel!  I would
>say..."next to" a fire...not on coals.  (but you could probably bury it in
>coals if it were covered!)
>
>As for what would be desired?  This is not period..but I took a firepit bread
>baking class at Pennsic last year..and the cook had a stoneware ..um..flat
>bottomed bowl/plate that could be used to mix, knead and raise the dough!  I
>NEED one of those!
>
>Etain inghean Ruaidhri
>(Etain1263 at aol.com)
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