“There must be an old memory, of bread baked on the hearth with fire, that people can’t seem to let go of, even after half a century or more of sliced bread in plastic bags.” I was therefore over the moon to find posts about communal ovens popping up again all across the Western world.
Researching for the last post on sourdough and traditional bread making I was touched by the historic stories that arose around group bread making practices in large communal ovens. Women coming together to provide nourishment for their families and the first bakeries starting. The images do have such a wholesome vibe to them, as Jutta Masson stated above
The PACT action group in Wales run community oven building workshops and bring portable ovens out to events. The St Paul’s bread club site is a real hub for links to communal oven projects all over the world, scroll right down to the bottom for the UK and there you will find links to pizza ovens on allotments in Lewes, Pakistani style tandor ovens in the East Midlands and plans to bring wood fired oven to parks. I really hope that they will be into baking some traditional sourdough.
“An oven is a story magnet. People rarely pass by the park oven
when something is baking without stopping to talk.”
Picture from traditionaloven.com
