[Sca-cooks] cooking piggy (whole)

Dragon dragon at crimson-dragon.com
Mon Jul 28 09:26:32 PDT 2008


Nick Sasso wrote:


>-----Original Message-----
>Stefan li Rous wrote:
>
> >To which Dragon said:
> ><<< That's because people don't understand that you don't roast OVER the
> >fire but to the SIDE of it.>>>
> >
>---------------- End original message. ---------------------
>The time to cook is of course dependent upon the size of the pig, the
>diligence of the cook in maintaining the fire at the proper level,
>turning the spit regularly, and even in how the pig has been trussed
>and prepared for roasting. A small pig may well be overcooked in 5
>hours and a large one may need as much as 8 or 9 hours. > > > > > > >
>
>
>Spit and fire cookery is more art than science in my experience.  Dragon is
>preaching the Word when talking about that fire.  It is the key to the whole
>success of the project.  Banking coals, feeding the fire, turning the spit,
>basting the meat all are part of managing the cooking process of a whole
>carcass.  Fire must be seen as a "living" entity at that point in order to
>understand it and use it successfully . . . not unlike forge management.
---------------- End original message. ---------------------

Amen brother. ;-)

Fire is not something that can be ignored, you can depend on it only 
so far as you take the time to give it what it wants and needs. The 
only constant with fire (especially one using a solid fuel) is that 
it changes, constantly. We are inured to the concept of relatively 
constant heat in our gas stoves and modern ovens to the point that we 
don't recognize this fact any longer.

I was recently gifted a copy of a book that I think says all of this 
far better than I can. Anyone interested in hearth cooking, cooking 
on a spit or a campfire, etc. really ought to obtain a copy of "The 
Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking: One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace 
or Campfire" by William Rubel (ISBN-13: 978-1580084536).



Dragon

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  Venimus, Saltavimus, Bibimus (et naribus canium capti sumus)
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