[Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

on cooking in clay pots:

it is said:
>What is this about Saxon leather cooking vessels? How would you cook
>in them? Drop in hot rocks warmed in the fire/coals? I know you
>aren't supposed to put pottery vessels over the fire, just coals and
>I imagine that leather pots are even less durable.


actually I cook in pottery on fires all the time and it works great. in fact, for some stuff, I vastly prefer to use crockery to metal.

there's a few tricks:
having the pots made of clay that can stand up to high temps helps :)
any flaws in the pot will become very apparent very quickly ;)
bring to heat fairly slowly and dont shock cool

I have used the pots in screaming fires (not just coals) and they survived nicely. I hae also used pots that were of lower temp clay, etc and 
they work fine, though they tend to have a shorter life span from the thermal shock.

just my experience,
--AM