Earthen pit ovens have been used
throughout the world for cooking feast foods and efficiently baking or steaming
numerous foods that were dried and stored for later use. Here on the coast the variety of foods that
were prepared in earthen ovens ranged from small sea mammals to crabs and
shellfish, to roots, and berries. On
Friday, I led a workshop for the Muckleshoot Tribal College on pit cooking.
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| Rock lined pit |
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| A hot fire |
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| Removing the unburned wood |
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| Layer of Salal |
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| Layer of Sword Fern |
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| The root vegetables |
I arrived early and with the help of
Miguel—a particularly keen student—dug a pit that was about three feet in
diameter and one foot deep with shallowly sloping walls. We lined the pit with fist sized basalt rocks
that I brought with me from Bellingham and kindled a hot fire on top of them.
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| The final layer of Sword Fern |
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| Add water |
The rest of the students arrived at 10:00 am and
we divided into groups to collect Salal (Gaultheria shallon) branches and Sword
Fern (Polystichum munitum) fronds, which are critical ingredients in pit
cooking.
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| Cover with burlap |
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| Seal with soil |
By 11:30, the rocks were nearly
red hot and we scooped the unburned coals from the cooking pit and packed in
our root vegetables. Salal, which has
amazingly fireproof leaves, was placed directly on the hot rocks and then
covered with a mattress of sword ferns.
We placed carrots, onions, yams, and potatoes on top of the sword ferns,
and then placed more sword ferns on top.
Then we poured water over the entire thing and quickly covered it with
burlap and a couple inches of soil to seal in the steam.
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| Carefully remove soil |
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| Carefully roll up burlap |
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| Remove vegetation |
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| Baked vegetables |
Three and a half hours later we
carefully uncovered the food and feasted on root veggies. It is hard to beat the flavor combination of onions
and yams that have been roasted underground with Salal!
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