The bread of our ancestors

While asking for the support of all residents of Cluj with a Facebook profile to vote for our community project entitled "The bread of our ancestors" ("Painea strabunilor" in Romanian) - VOTE HERE - we continued with the research. The project envisages free workshops for kindergarten groups, teaching them how to make fire, make the dough, model bread and bake it in the fashion of the Romans and the Dacians. This envisages the reconstruction of the clay oven at Camp Virtus - a topic tackled before HERE.

We are also doing out homework regarding ancient bread shapes, stamps and bakeries. The best sources are charred and construction remains in Pompeii and Herculaneum, but there are also useful depictions and preserved recipes.

charred bread from Pompeii. source: kitchenboy

bronze bread stamp. source: source: kitchenboy

A view of the millstones and oven of a bakery (Pistrinium) in the Roman town of Pompeii. source: ancient.eu

Drawing of the Average Work Day in an Ancient Roman Bakery. Photograph. Pompeii Nowadays and 2000 Years Ago. Firenze: Bonechi Edizioni- Il Turismo, 1977. 56-57. Print. This shows how a Romran bakery could have looked. Source: pinterest

 

Vote for the remake of the ancient bread oven

A bread oven was built, as an experimental archaeology initiative, at Camp Virtus, near Cluj, earlier this year. We did bake bread inspired by models from Pompeii and thin pita bread and got the hang of it, but the construction unfortunately proved imperfect. We learned for example that the inner wattle structure leads to cracks and thus should not be used for such constructions; we also figured that the small door should be made BEFORE the oven mouth otherwise it will not fit as it should; and third, and most important perhaps, we learned that the oven should be covered, preferably with a water tight roof beforehand, as otherwise hot sun and rain damage it permanently.

Initiative 131 - C'mon Cluj-Napoca

The reenactors of Virtus Antiqua are thus ready to take up the experiment anew, tear down the old oven and built a new one. You can support their effort by voting the project online HERE, until September the 7th!