[Sca-cooks] Greek terracotta foufou stove

[Mercy Neumark]

I've seen other types of pots in period and from what I can tell (my head hurts, so excuse me if I mis-inturpreted it) it sounds like a chaffing dish to me.  I have some pictures someplace of them (unfortunately not scanned but I MIGHT be able to do that in a few days).  The examples I have are English, around 13-14th or so century.  Sort of  Y shaped.  Fuel efficient... eh, I guess as fuel efficient as cooking anything.  Think of it as a fondue pot of the period really.  And smoke would be coming out like crazy, depending on what you would use.  So, it's not a comfortable way of cooking by any stretch of the imagination.

There is a block print of a chaffing dish (I believe) being used with a small pipkin on it.  I need to find the pictures.  I don't know if Mistress Huette has the scans still on her computer or not.  I know it is on my pipkin documentation, which was LONG crashed.  If I find it, I will put it up on my food blog.

But basically you could cook anything realititive to the size of your chaffing dish and pipkin.  I've made both and I would think the pipkins were like a pint or so?  Maybe I'm exaggerating a TEENY tiny bit?  Like a small suace pan since it wasn't used for major cooking as far as I could tell (the chaffing dish).  Just mostly like it's used for now... portable cooking in small areas.

I could be DEAD wrong, but that's what I gathered with my research as I was doing the pottery end.

The base is narrow, the "mouth" is wider.

I'm stopping now, because I could have misunderstood this entire question and I hate it when I boo-boo.  I don't want to take up anyone's time.  Hopefully I understood what the vessel was and got it.

--Baroness Asakura no Mashi (Mercy the Potter of Caid)
Goes back to lurking
::waves at all my friends and crosses fingers that I didn't just make a doofus of myself::


> In Hoffman's book, The Olive and the Caper, she describes a 2000+ year old
> stove style that is still in use in the present in Greece.
> 
>  
> 
> Description:
> 
> Made of red clay
> 
> ~15 inches tall
> 
> Wine cup shape on thick hollow stem
> 
> Incisions in at the bottom of the cup leading to the stem
> 
> At the bottom of the stem is a triangular cutout
> 
> Two small curlicued handles on opposite sides of the cup's broad lip
> 
> Presently only made and sold on the island of Sifnos
> 
>  
> 
> To use:
> 
> Put small heap of charcoal in the cup, perhaps with a bit of paper
> underneath
> 
> Light it
> 
> Let coals burn to red glow
> 
> Place food into long-handled two sided grill basket
> 
> Set encased food on the lip of the foufou cup over the coals
> 
> Cook one side
> 
> Flip and cook second side
> 
>  
> 
> How it works:
> 
> Triangular slot acts as fire-feeding air hole
> 
> Ashes drop through incisions into stem
> 
> When cinders/ashes are cool, they can be dumped out of the triangular slot
> and the cup
> 
>  
> 
> If anyone has seen one of these or knows about the historical use, I'd love
> to know:
> 
>       1) It seems like this design would be very fuel efficient.  Is it?
> 
>       2)  Any indications of what might have been used historically for the
> grill basket?
> 
> 3) Any place I could see pictures of historic or museum versions?
> 
>       4) Are you aware of any places in the US or Europe that have current
> ones and maybe internet photos?
> 
>       5) How wide is it at the top?  Is the stem thinner or wider than the
> cup?  How stable is it?
> 
>  
> 
> She really enjoyed using her foufou stove and used it almost daily when she
> lived in Greece in the house that had no electricity or running water.  (She
> also had a gas hot plate.)
> 
>  
> 
> Any leads appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> Sharon
> 
> gordonse at one.net


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