[Sca-cooks] Ceramic cooking pots was Re:Master Hroars Email

[Philippa Alderton]

--- Louise Smithson <smithson at mco.edu> wrote:

> They were wheel thrown, the pot was the result of
> the largest piece of
> clay I ever tried to work with.  As for firing.
> They were bisqued and
> high fired and are glazed on the inside (not period
> but seal them for
> food).  As to air pockets, no I don't think their
> are any but when they
> are fired the whole pot is heated in the kiln
> gradually.  When you cook
> the bottom of a cold pot gets put on a fire and the
> top doesn't.  The
> difference in heat between the two bits can make all
> the difference.  If
> there are any tiny tiny air bubbles in the bottom it
> could still become
> very exciting.  I plan on wearing safety glasses the
> first time I try
> them out.

Safety is always good, says Phlip the Chirurgeon ;-)

Well, my admittedly limited experience with pottery
(used to do a fair amount, but that was years ago)
indicates that a pot thrown on a wheel tends to have
greater integrity than a coiled pot. Both can have all
air bubbles removed, but there tends to be greater
integrity in a pot thrown on a wheel, given that the
clay is mixed and wedged properly.

That being understood, my experience with cooking with
clay vessels, and anecdotal evidence, indicates that a
clay cook pot, rather than suddenly being stuck in a
hot fire, is placed close to the fire with the
foodstuffs inside, so that everything is heated slowly
and evenly- think crock-pot ;-) The few frying pans
I've seen all had very small handles, and were wide
and shallow, so that they would tend to heat evenly,
without a large temperature differential between one
section and another. I suspect, as you say, the
temperature differential could be the source of
problems.

Now, considering what they're doing with modern
ceramics (my favorite swivel knife blade is ceramic,
and look at what the space industry is doing with
ceramic insulation for spacecraft- re-entry heats
aren't very slow), there very likely is a ceramic
which is the equivalent of Pyrex glass, but
undoubtedly the processes involved are a bit too
complex for the home potter, and besides, I think our
efforts are focussed on Medieval usages, so if you
throw a Medieval-style pot, you would want to cook
with it as a Medieval person might. So, consider that
before you go throwing your new pot into a hot fire
;-)

One of the items Hroar makes, as I mentioned, is a
brazier, and by its nature, there would be a large
temperature difference between the bottom and the top.
The ones I was looking at at Pennsic a couple of years
ago had a small fire built in the bottom, to provide
hot coals, were fairly open up the sides, for easy
access to air, and addition of fuel, although they
looked rather like a vase in shape, and had a flat,
open top, where you put the food you were cooking.
Knowing Hroar, it was from a period design, and looked
quite efficient- one of these days I'm going to have
enough money to buy one from him, and play ;-)

> Ah but Philip what type of beans?  What period
> recipe?
> Helewyse
> Who wants to try and make a bigger pot than the two
> pint one she has
> now.

Well, that tends to be a bit problematical, because
most beans are New World. The Old World varieties
include favas, lentils, chick peas, peas, and possibly
the one Ras is so interested in, the one that looks
like the yard-long bean but produces a seed which
looks similar to a kidney bean, and I suspect none of
these would take well to the style of New England bean
cooking with which we are familiar. My thoughts along
that line would be that the Bean Pot was a familiar
shape of a pot used for something else originally,
which happened to be a convenient size and shape for
slow-cooking of New World beans. Possibly, a pottery
coffyn, instead of a pastry coffyn?

Another possibility would be to look at New World
Native American cookery. We know they had pottery, and
we know they had beans in their diet- might they have
used pots similar to the one you made for cooking
beans? We do know that refried beans would not have
been cooked prior to the European invasion, because
the pig and its fat are from the Old World, so soaking
and/or slow-cooking dried (for preservation) beans
would have been with water. For what it's worth,
pre-Columbian Native Americans had a very low-fat
diet, as a general rule.

Of course (says Phlip the scrounger), you could always
bring a pot by SPCA camp at Pennsic before
Meso-American Night, and I'd be happy to experiment
;-)

Oh, and about glazing the interior of your pots? The
yuppies have found an unglazed casserole with a lid
(can't think of its name, durn it) which they soak in
water, fill with food, and put in the oven, thus
partially steam-cooking the food. They seem to work
quite well- you might consider making one to
experiment with, once you get your skills up to the
level where you can actually make a pot lid that will
fit an existing pot ;-)

Just got to thinking, too- could period pots be
unglazed inside because they were normally soaked
before usage, but it never got mentioned for the same
reason modern recipes don't tell you to turn on the
stove?

Lotsa food for thought, here- I'd love to hear others'
speculations and evidence, pro or con, about my
thinking.

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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