We used the cob oven this
week for the first time – very exciting!
We’d had some really sunny
and dry weather but I knew that the oven was going to still need a lot of
drying out time, so I wasn’t sure how the first fire would go… It was an exciting experimental process and
part of the discovery of getting to know the oven!
I was with Oak, the year two
class at Dunkirk, all day, with their teacher Mark Woodings and their teaching
assistant Michelle Loach. Between the
three of us therefore we were able to facilitate a whole set of things
happening in parallel with the children.
Whilst at the very start of the morning I worked with a very small group to sort fuel and light the fire
in the oven, the rest of the class had a wonderful telling of the Little Red
Hen story, complete with lots of visual and tactile props.
Throughout the day, the
class all made bread dough in groups – it was important they all had a chance
to explore this (the whole school does a lot of cooking all year round, so using the oven is just a part of a much wider set of on-going activities). We’re also hoping to have a bread week at school
in September, where all classes can make a whole set of different breads and
test out lots of different methods used around the world to bake and share
bread.
Oak class have been
exploring their self-generated question of “how things move” and also recently been looking at
space. So as a brilliant hands-on way
of exploring this they all worked in small groups to build rockets from old
carbonated drinks bottles, which were then test-launched with Mark’s
foot-pump. It meant that we were
launching rockets and firing the cob oven all at the same time (all whilst
little groups also made dough and looked at yeast rising etc). The rockets worked really well, some went incredibly
high and I loved that happening whilst we cooked
Because we were on the
school field and Discovery Garden (they are all part of the same area) all day
it meant there was exactly enough space for all of these things to be happening
alongside each other. There was a
wonderful host of questions, observations, thoughts and ideas all being exchanged. The children could watch what each other
were doing and had the physical space they needed to do this.
So as I stoked the fire in
the oven and cut firewood with some children, there were rockets being fired
nearby and really interesting discussions amongst the children.
There were also lots of loose
parts being turned into potions, concoctions, images and stories…
It was wonderful to finally
light the oven, the fire got going well but did need to be stoked a lot. I didn’t want to make a big fire in it and
I was wary of causing cracks with any sudden changes in temperature. We had the oven lit all day and it did take
at least three hours to get hot enough to begin to cook bread. Its all an experiment and so important for
the children to see adults willing to test and not always know how things will
turn out. The first batch of rolls came
out a bit soft (“I’d like some dumplings” one boy said!) but were cooked
through and had a great slightly smoky taste.
By the end of the day the oven was cooking the little bread rolls really
well and had built up a great amount of heat.
You have to “soak” the oven
through with the heat, it works as a heat-retaining chamber and it’s the
residual heat that you cook with. Its
was really interesting seeing how hot the different parts of the oven became
and which part held the most heat – and that’s important in helping us to learn
how to cook with it. Every clay oven
is slightly different and I like the idea that you have to get to know your own
oven!
We’ve not had a chance to
make a door for the oven yet and I used a set of bricks to close the doorway
(and thereby retain the heat) whilst we cooked with it – this seemed to work
fine. I liked the little bits of smoke
emerging from the doorway, especially as they swirled around the little
character that sits just about the door!
In terms of using a cob oven
in school, it does need an adult with it throughout and there’s loads of
practical aspects that are crucial – especially as you are using fire. (One of the really important elements of my
Forest School training was the health and safety aspects of making and using
fire, safely, with children.) The
school needs to be committed to using the oven and have enough members of staff
willing to do this – and that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about our cob
oven at Dunkirk.
Building and using a clay oven
in a school does feel a process that is making several important ethical
points. It’s about making things
yourself – not buying them in ready made.
It’s about slowing down and understanding that things take time. It’s about cooking and sharing food – and
creating a social and community space to do this. It’s about the ecology of the way we cook and use fuel and it’s
about understanding where our food comes from.
It’s about the spaces we give to our children and to ourselves as
adults.
Whilst we ate our bread we
were able to take in all the other aspects of the natural world around us. Damselflies are now busy in the Discovery
Garden, as well as many bees, beetles, butterflies and so much more. The pond has many small creatures in
it. Flowers are out, many different
kings of leaves are about, there are very visible signs of the cycle of life –
cuckoo spit, leaf-galls of various kinds are plentiful as well as some small
remains of a couple of dead birds killed, we think, by a sparrowhawk (the children
don’t touch these but are really interested).
These things provide crucial points for discussions about the natural
world.
So, we hope to use the oven
again at least once a week for the rest of term and we’ll get to know it more
and more as we do so. Its providing
such a wonderful talking point and we’ve had some very inspiring conversations
with families about cooking traditions around the world. Many of the children at school come from a
whole host of countries and either they or their families have first hand
experience of cooking in many different ways.
