Mobile Wood Fired Oven

Puff the magic dragon may have lived by the sea, but this mean dragon lives on an old truck bed trailer. Designed and built by some local folks, the purpose of this mass of bricks, clay, sand and straw is to get really hot. Hot enough to bake bread, pizzas, roast vegetables, and singe all the hair off of your hand if you forget to put a glove on first.

I'll post more on the oven during the actual challenge, as it will be making it's way around the valley in September, including an appearance at Just Local Food on Saturday August 25th, Phoenix Park on September 11, and possibly the New Earth Festival in Fall Creek a few days later...

The oven was built by a handful of people using the old technique of cobbing - cob is a mixture of sand, clay and straw put together by hand (or foot, as in the picture here). The cob is then formed into balls or bricks and mushed together to form whatever you want - a bench, a big oven, or even a house. The first time this oven was constructed we used cob for the roof of the oven. It later caved in on a batch of bread, and the oven was recently rebuilt using firebricks to line the inside so it won't cave...

What does this have to do with local food? Well, when I was considering the challenge, and what it means and really the purpose - I asked where does our food come from, and how is it prepared, and what is used to cook it? Maybe we get a local carrot but put on miles by cooking it with petroleum (which we were trying to avoid, right?).

So in the interest of exploring, in the spirit of the challenge, I wondered if we do have some resources around here to cook food. Of course! The sun being a great option, via a fancy solar oven or a simple solar box oven made from foil and cardboard. If it isn't sunny, fire is another option. It does make smoke, and may not be the perfect environmental solution, but it is local, makes great food, and works well in this brick lined clay oven. A small fire made from a few sturdy logs can burn for hours, and make the oven hot enough to bake a few pizzas (the one in the picture cooked in less than five minutes) then bake a bunch of bread with the residual heat. The oven is big enough to share space with neighbors, too. So a few batches of bread can be baked all at once or right after one another.

Now, to find a source for local spelt or wheat to make bread from...