Clay oven construction

My host family is in the process of rebuilding our clay oven, after the original collapsed a few months ago. Clay ovens, which are typically about the size and shape of an igloo made for a two year-old, are quite common in this region of Peru. They are used primarily for bread-baking, but are also known to cook large roasts of meat, cakes, or cookies made by enterprising Peace Corps volunteers.

While I had seen our oven in action several times before it collapsed, the re-building has been equally interesting (though significantly less delicious), because I've been able to learn how it's made. First my host dad, Javi, dug holes in the dirt floor, then mixed cement to support the two upright wooden logs that serve as the base.

Phase one

Phase two involved laying and securing wood planks in the form of a table, which will later be covered with thick clay to form the bottom of the actual oven.

Host parents posing mid-construction

However, as my host dad informed me, this particular wooden frame is much stronger than your average table - his exact words, said with a fair amount of pride in his construction skills, were: "an elephant could stand on here!" Not sure we'll ever have the opportunity to test that claim, but I don't doubt that it's a well-built oven base. This wooden starting point is as far as the construction process has gotten so far, but once the clay has dried and hardened, the final product should look like this:

Fire burning in the old oven as it heated up to bread-baking temperature

What's interesting about these ovens is that at the time of actual baking, there's no fire burning inside. Instead, the baker lights and resupplies the oven fire for a solid five hours or so before baking time. Once the desired heat level is reached, you scrape out all but some coals around the edge, and the clay dome traps the heat while the food cooks. Although definitely not as time-efficient as simply twirling your electric oven dial to 350 degrees, I can attest that these more traditional ovens make for some seriously tasty bread.