We've got illustrations of portable ovens being pushed around on a wheeled cart, but the construction details are lacking. Has anyone tried making on oven like this, or know where to find info on mid-15th century ovens?

If you can find out what those wheeled ovens were used for I'd be VERY interested. Sure I can document *that* they existed, I just can't document *why* they existed.

Joan and I discussed having one for camp, but I've never seen one illustrated as being part of an army on campaign. Without that context, it's as much innappropriate kit as a microwave.

AM and I built a little beehive oven at an event 3 years ago, and our preliminary experiments with it were great fun. However, it never stopped raining/snowing long enough for us to really fire it up, so we never got beyond a few test rolls. Bummer.

--------------------

--AM

--------------------

I will contact her to get the source and context for this statement.

--------------------

quote:

---

there's the picture of the field of cloth of gold that clearly shows folks baking in ovens...

---

Sounds like the Renaissance equivalent of a hot dog vendor or coffee vendor with their "push carts" at sporting events such as the aforementioned one. Set up for as long as needed, then move it to a new "fixed" location as Phillipe indicated (please let us know what you discover).

Jenn

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fire Stryker:

Sounds like the Renaissance equivalent of a hot dog vendor or coffee vendor with their "push carts" at sporting events such as the aforementioned one.

---

Even if it isn't, I'd still like to know what they were used for.

The first one shows the oven sitting outside of a house and is titled "155. A portable oven. From Medieval Life Illustrations.":
http://www.godecookery.com/afeast/gallery6/mpix155.htm][/URL]

the second one is titled a portable oven and a pastry merchant:
http://www.godecookery.com/afeast/gallery7/mpix187.htm

Unfortunately while the author states they are from "authentic period sources" they do not site the sources or the dates.

The following article makes an interesting arument for the use of portable ovens on campaign during the 100 years war:
http://www.oldcolo.com/~memorman/bread.html

[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Phillipe de Pamiers ]

[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Phillipe de Pamiers ]

--------------------

From _Food and Eating in Medieval Europe_, Ed. Martha Carlin and Joel Rosenthal, 1998, 1-85285-148-1
"Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England", M. Carlin

There is a huge list here of 'fast food' available in various large cities (Paris, London), but I don't have any notes on specific mention of how this food was sold, aside from some mention of cookshops in Vintry? on the Thames.

Waferers sold wafers or griddle cakes which were cooked in irons or ovens, but I don't have any info on the ovens involved....

Street cries of vendors from Winchester and London listed in _London Lyckpenny_ (mid 15th cent poem) included hot sheep's feet on Candlewick St and beef ribs and meat pies in Eastcheap. I don't know how the street vendors heated the food, tho. But hot sheep's feet sounds like a great thing to feed the cooking judges at MTA

--------------------

It looks interesting.

I am 90% certain I can locate some documentation to their use on campaign in the 15th century (on the continent though - the WOR campaigns were too rapid for such nicities). It may take a while, but I will hunt for you. Such ovens would be needed to augment the production capability of local ovens for an army on the march. An army has always marched on it's stomach.

--------------------

--------------------

Great question; I wish I had an easy answer. During the French wars of
Edward III's reign, the English did at least sometimes take ovens on
campaign with them. For example, Froissart writes that in the autumn of
1359, when Edward III led a campaign from Calais through NE France, "the
great English lords and men of substance took with them tents of various
sizes, mills, for grinding corn, ovens for baking, forges for shoeing the
horses and all other necessities."

Michael Prestwich (in _Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The
English Experience_, chapter 10), speaking of the French wars, says that
English military provisioning was *poorer* in the fifteenth century than
it had been in the fourteenth (pp. 260-1). (Prestwich does not discuss
provisioning during the Wars of the Roses, however.)

My impression is that armies on campaign often commandeered
existing mills and ovens in the vicinity to grind their corn and bake
their bread, and that much bread also was obtained locally by purchase or
seizure. Christine de Pizan's _The Book of the Deeds of Arms and of
Chivalry_ (Part II, Chap. 23), in discussing how an army should besiege
a fortress, says:

Item, marshals will be designated to assign lodgings as best
they can, and to provide for the merchants to be amply and
well lodged, and also the craftsmen, so that the army can be
better served.

Item, it will be announced throughout the neighboring towns
that food should be bought for all parts of the army, and
that the good people will be paid and protected, and so it
should be carried out.

Item, it should be announced that on pain of death the merchants
should not be mistreated, or spoken against, nor anything taken
without being paid for, nor should anyone be so bold as to
enrich himself by charging more than a proper price, nor should
anything be sold to be taken to any place except the army.

There is an illustration of street-sellers with a portable oven at the
Council of Constance (1417), printed in P.W. Hammond's _Food and Feast in
Medieval England_, p. 52.

The painting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold shows the massive temporary
ovens that were erected on that occasion -- these were clearly not
portable.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions -- sorry that I can't
give a more categorical answer.

Best wishes for a good "campaign" --

Martha Carlin
Associate Professor of History
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Cheers, Joan TTD

--------------------

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing anything that leads me to believe that we can have a portable oven for the Red Company. Even if 15th C. campaigning was as "richly" supplied as 14th, we're Burgundians exported to England, not English maintaining their own troops on their own soil. I find it hard to believe that we'd bring an oven on what has been described as a hard campaign.

That having been said, if you can determine how those cool portable ovens were used, I'll give you my place in line to get one so you can be a local Englishwoman who's brought her oven to camp so I can bake bread. Anyone for a little bit of free enterprise?

--------------------

--------------------

--------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by fra.hulettaes:
Gwen,
I'm such a freak. I totally mis read your last paragraph. What a great idea! I'd love to. Goody, goody, goody. (Jumping up and down, clapping hands victory dance) Let's at least try it.
What fun, hot pies, he, he, he!
Joan the Terrier Diligente.

---

I have GOT to figure out how to come play at Bates with you guys this year...(and bring Genot, the wacky french baker girl)

too much fun!
--AM

--------------------

The trick is going to be transportation, since we have to pull a horse trailer. We're going to have to find some way to get the thing from place to place, probably on a little flatbed. That's going to have to be your department, since it's your oven.

I am so on board with this you wouldn't believe it, so let's see what we can work out!

Just thinking, as the images that were supplied depict the ovens "blazing" while sitting on a wooden cart.

Jenn

--------------------

We were able to bake one loaf of bread in between the snow / hail/sleet storms, and it seemed as though the technology was sound. Unfortunately, we spent all of the event trying to stay warm, instead of trying to bake bread in an oven out in the open.

Ours had a chimney, and based on what I've seen since i think I would leave that out.

Jenn, heat travels up, so I think a few bricks as a base for the oven would keep the cart plenty cool. Our wood stove at home is about 10" off the hearth and even with a fire in it the underneath stays cool enough to touch, amazingly enough.