First Outdoor Cooking!
Last night, Tuesday 15 July 2025, as I had stated, I made some preparations!
Ham stock boiled for a bit:
Chopped onion.
Oops, forgot to treat the pots! I covered the soapstone and the ceramic in linseed, aka flax seed oil and left overnight. The metal pot, I washed since it's been kicking around the house for a while.
Wednesday 16 July 2025
Two different weather reports were checked before 7 AM. We are a GO for cooking this morning! We started preparations at 7:30 AM. We had to bring down a table, all the pots, fire equipment (thanks mom!), the food, citronella candle. bug spray, cutting board and knife to chop the ham. Oops, forgot to turn on the water. Oops, forgot the heat gun. Where are my leather gloves? Ken brought me a different pair.
At 8:15 AM we finally were able to start the fire. Ken advised against the "log cabin" and recommended the "teepee". We started small.
Adding some larger sticks to the fire.
Adding some larger pieces around the outside to get it warm to dry out. Everything is damp.
Still chopping smaller stuff to keep it hot. By 9:00 AM, we were still building coals.
At almost 9:30 AM, finally got out some store bought charcoal out! I was hoping to do without it, but everything was damp. More than an hour after getting the fire going, I still can't cook! I understand why people bank their fires now.
9:47 AM The charcoal REALLY helped! I was FINALLY able to put the pots on the trivets.
Butter and onions in first.
Soaked barley and added about 1/3 of the ham stock.
Finally, we've begun cooking and it's almost 10 AM.
I tried to take some readings of the temperature of the pots. 10 AM Soapstone (SS) 210F, Ceramic (C) 240F, metal (M) too low? 10:15 AM SS 400F! C 270F, M 500F?! I am having trouble with the heat gun. Ambient 87 F 72% RH
Chopped up the ham. I quickly realized it was falling apart!
I just broke it up by hand. It was a spiral sliced ham and most of what I threw in the pot had been sliced, rather than the left over chunks.
10 AM It's boiling in the Soapstone pot! It's been around 15 minutes.
And in the ceramic!
10:15 AM The pots are rotated and stirred.
10:30 AM SS Seems done, by mouth-feel, ham added. Right on time, I might add. 30 minutes seems to be the minimal time to cook. C seems almost done. More water was added since it was all gone. I ran inside, with Ken tending the fire, to heat some water in the microwave!
The metal pot is most definitely NOT done. I decided it needed more heat. There wasn't really evidence of boiling. It was moved off the trivet and placed into the coals.
10:38 AM The barley in the soapstone pot is boiling. It was removed from the fire. I also added the ham to the barley in the ceramic.
10:45 AM I took the ceramic pot off the fire
10:50 AM Barley in the metal pot has it's ham added. This is kind of ridiculous! It's still not done by mouth-feel.
11:10 AM 20 minutes later, I called it done, and took the metal pot off the fire.
Ambient 91F 69% RH
SS 130F, C 98F, M 81F (Cools quickly!) Can I believe it?
Flames doused carefully. Stuff brought into the house or put away. More dousing of logs. Considering this cooking is at the edge of trees, I want to be careful. It's going to rain later too, so that's good.
12 noon after being in the house for a half hour. Inside pot on barley- SS 114F, C 114F, M 103F
Definitely weirdness with the heat gun. I don't trust the readings at all!
Lots of calories burned!
I had barley for lunch. It was overly buttery for my modern taste. The fact that I burned my day's calories by noon, indicates to me those calories and "luscious" butter taste would probably have been enjoyed, back in the Scandinavian Viking Age.
I figured that fire management was going to be a concern. This summer has been WET, so far, in between bouts of blazing heat. This made developing coals difficult.
In my opinion, the soapstone was superior. It heated quickly and stayed hot. The ceramic pot also worked just fine and is, I judge, an adequate replacement. The Scandinavians who subjugated York, wouldn't have too much trouble adjusting to the ceramic replacement pots, from the soapstone they might have brought with them, once their SS was unusable. It was noted in the western expansion here in Pennsylvania, USA, that limited amounts could be brought with a family, due to limitation of their pack animals. York is blessed with two waterways, one, with a direct link to the ocean. I wouldn't see a problem, with their navigation skills, to have brought pretty much everything they wanted to, to their new homes.
The metal pot I think would be fine, now that I realize it requires a more direct heat. I've seen metal pots used over direct flame. Perhaps that would be more efficient than over coals. For traveling, indeed, a metal pot would be lighter and far less breakable than soapstone or ceramic. A small tripod with a hook to hold the metal pot directly over flames would be better than needing to create coals.
Upon reflection, I think I could have started cooking sooner, if I had placed the pots next to the flames. I'm not sure why I thought coals was the way to go. I think, because the trivets had been suggested? The ceramic pot is intended to sit in the fire, with it's convex shape. The soapstone pot is flat on the bottom and could rest on coals as well. The metal pot I have, also has a convex bottom, rather than flat. This would require more pot movement to keep the fire hot beneath it. Handling would be closer to the fire. Not necessarily safer to do, but quicker.
Keeping people fed was a LOT of work. The firewood needs to be gotten. Wood cut and hauled to the home. The fire needs to be tended. I think the heat retention of the soapstone would have helped the person cooking. They would use less fuel to keep the vessel hot. The raw materials, the barley would need to be grown and harvested. It would require removal of the hull of the grain. This is a grinding process. That requires a (granite) quern to be made, a quarried stone product. The meat would need to be harvested from the animal and smoked. Pork, in this case, was a common city domesticated animal. The soapstone pot, ceramic pot or metal pot, would need to be made or traded for. Soapstone was a quarried stone product. It was common in Norway, where there there are soapstone deposits. Ceramics are crafted from clay and fired in a kiln. This was available in England. A metal pot requires ore processing and blacksmithing to a usable form. Butter needs to be made from milk. The animal providing the milk would need husbandry. Leeks or ransoms would need to be grown or foraged for.
That's a lot of interlinking requirements, just to make dinner! Far more complex than running to the grocery store and getting ingredients and cooking it in a pot you bought, in a more controlled environment on a stove, which you can control the heat precisely.
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