chembake wrote:
> Kenneth wrote:
>
>> We've been commenting about them here for years, and I
>> suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand
>> years before that.
>>
>
> DITTO....indeed bakers in some developing countries (in the past )
> indeed did it that way, the dough baked inside a clay pot .......but
> raised with crude sourdoughs starter...
> It just don't look appetizing to eat though....

This may not be strictly "bread"-related but when I was in the RAF I was
stationed at a Middle East airfield in 1963-64. One of the typical
sights in the local market was a young lad with a crate of tinned,
condensed milk; a sack of flour; a smaller sack of salt; and a small,
mud-brick built, gas-fired oven. He sat cross-legged, mixed a small
amount of flour, milk and salt (no yeast), moulded it briefly into a
flattish, circular shape with his bare hands before opening the oven
door, casually tossing the dough into the oven and closing the oven
door. By the time he had mixed the next lot of dough the dough in the
oven was ready to bring out and add to the pile of cooked "loaves".
--
Bruce Fletcher
Stronsay, Orkney
<www.stronsay.co.uk/claremont>
(Remove teeth to reply)
"Some days you are the pigeon. Some days you are the statue"