[Sca-cooks] Dutch ovens?

[James Prescott]

At 13:12 -0500 2004-02-09, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
>  I want to buy a pot for camping.  I know cast 
> iron dutch ovens aren't really period, but they 
> are something I can afford and don't look too 
> glaring to modern eyes.  Amazon has an 8 quart 
> one for $27 with free shipping.
>
>  When were dutch ovens first used (the kind that you put coals on the lid) ?
>
>  Or do you know where to buy a more period style 
> of pot that isn't too expensive?


I don't know when Dutch ovens were first used, and I don't know what
they were made of, nor their exact physical appearance, but they
are at least late period.

A Dutch oven (coals on the lid) is mentioned several times in the
Dutch "Cocboeck" (1593) by Carolus Battus, using the Dutch words
"oven" and "vladepan".

There are also several mentions in the French / Belgian "Ouverture"
(1604) by Lancelot de Casteau which suggest (e.g. "put the lids on
top with some fire") that something very similar was in use in
Liège.  The French word "tortiere" / "tourtier" / "tourtiere" is
used in eleven recipes, and clearly usually has a lid, unlike the
modern open pie dish of the same name.

Casteau first worked as a master cook for a Bishop of Liège in
about 1560, which suggests he was then at least in his 20s, and
seems to have been retired by 1604.  So he is remembering the
use of the utensils from the second half of the 1500s.


A quick look in "Larousse Gastronomique" (p. 557) gives a French
manor house kitchen inventory from 1530 which includes "one big
cast-iron pot with perforations", which shows that cast iron was
available in 1530.  There is however no item in this inventory
which sounds to me at all like a Dutch oven.


Rey et al. "Dictionnaire historique de la langue française" give
the first mention of "fonte" in the sense of cast-iron in 1472,
though the word is used as early as 1227 but without necessarily
meaning cast-iron.

Rey et al. give the earliest citation of "tourtière" as a kitchen
utensil in 1573 but do not give any detailed description of it.


Thorvald