Roasting likely was discovered not long after barbecue. Roasting is offset cooking. Whether over coals or gas, or in an electric oven, roasting is a dry cooking technique in which the meat or vegetables are cooked by exposure to intense heat but not directly over the heat source unless in a roasting pan. Most likely, primitive man found that if he placed the meat beside the fire and tuned it regularly, it would cook evenly and slowly, and would be less likely to burn. In either grilling or barbecuing, the fat dripping into the fire or coals can cause a flare up of flames that will burn the meat. Soon, he realized that stones placed around and behind three sides of the meat, with the open side exposed to the fire, helped reflect heat and more evenly cook it. Turning the meat on a spit would have been the next innovation. Eventually, man learned to baste the meat as it cooked, adding flavor.
Broiling is somewhere between grilling and roasting, in an oven with very high heat and the meat near the oven coils.
Baking likely began when the three sided stone box was enclosed. This allowed for more controlled temperatures. Even now, one occasionally finds an intact kitchen from a colonial or antebellum home in which the large fireplace has a little nook… a brick box-type inset with a wooden door. This was called a beehive oven. The oven was heated by the fire, but the food was not exposed to fire. The dutch oven, mentioned earlier, is essentially a cast iron “box”. In the older design, the pot has legs to elevate it off the ground so it can be set over coals. The lid is designed with a lip so that you can pile coals on top. This turns a simple pot into an oven for baking. While most folks use a modern gas or electric oven, many bread and pizza fanatics still use a wood fired oven. These ovens have a large, flat surface made of brick. The body of the oven is made from a natural, clay type material (cob, etc) and is domed. This allows a small fire to be be built inside the oven that heats both the floor and the dome to extremely hot temperatures. The oven hold this heat and after the fire has burned down to coals, the food is slid in on a baking peel (large wooden paddle) and a wooden door is placed over the opening. When bread is being baked in such an oven, water is sprayed in first, just before the bread is put in, to create the steam that forms a nice crust. Such ovens cook very quickly and can stay hot for hours. Traditionally, a village may have had only one or two such ovens that were used communally, all the women baking their bread in turns. They are extremely efficient in that regard, using small amounts of fuel to bake large amounts of bread. There are many DIY type designs online that enable most anyone to build a wood fired oven. If you take the time and effort to do so, building such an oven is well worth the effort and minimal expense. Simply put, if the grid goes down wood fueled cooking never will. And honestly, wood fire makes food taste better.
This article is an excerpt from
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