Historic Cooking Fires

[Type16]

Pretty sure we can - We've got a chemist who likes explosives in our group. A steel firebox probably wouldn't survive it though.

Thermite welding

[craig1459]

andirons

"andirons"?

Best wishes.

metal frame of sorts to hold firewood off the ground

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andiron

[glyndwr 50]

Nice selection of various types of cooking fire Colin .You certainly have been busy,well done .I like a lot of others on this thread would love to cook on the ground with an open fire .But I have myself come up against a rather unhappy event organiser only this year .We had a basket type of fire which was off the ground about six inches,but due to the heat of the fire it scorched the grass and red hot embers fell onto the grass and burnt it rather badly .When we went back to this same venue the organiser jumped on me as soon as I arrived . He stated quite clearly NO fires on the ground and if we want to cook he wanted to see all fires off the ground and all fires must have a plate bottom and high plated sides to contain the ashes .Any one who burns the grass will feel my displeasure .I said I was very sorry and it will not happen again .He said make sure it does'nt .I brought a Iron Dwarf fire box ,its not in any way period ,but I make sure that I tell the public this fact and give the reason why and they understand the siduation .It is a problem ,but what can you do when its a request from the organiser .The orcganiser said its not just the scorching his worried about there is also the safety point to remember .If the wind gets up and the fires not watched ( And even if there was someone watching the fire ) red hot embers start flying about and with dry grass and so many tents so close to each other ,its just an accident waiting to happen .I can see his point , period or not thats the way it turning out .Unless as someone has already stated there is another way ,lets hear it .

[lucasbu]

can you post photos of your "medieval" iron dwarf fire boxes

[The Iron Dwarf]

if you follow the link in my sig to my ebay shop you can find 2 of the four.
the other two are larger and better versions of the type A ( without the mesh but with a bar grill that slides as required from end to end, and pot hangers can be used at the same time as the spit. )
medium has 1 bar grill and one pot hanger, large has two of both.
will post some pix here soon.
( also they are cheaper if not going through ebay due to the fees there )

[The Iron Dwarf]

large one
900 by 450





the medium one not shown is 675 by 450
sometimes I supply legs with a bend in as shown and if fitted the other way up they are more spread out to add even more stability

[lucasbu]

how about braziers?

this one is egyptian, 13th C


http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/ho_91.1.540.htm

[Timothy]

Braziers are definitely the way to go. Here is one of mine. http://livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/palacecompany/tea-up.jpg The great advantage is that when fueled with charcoal you can pick them up and take them into a tent when the weather gets bad. A little hard to document for western Europe though.

T.

[Sophia]

I use one of Jim the Pot's earthenware ones stood in a large bowl for safety for similar purposes. Also very useful for keeping sauces and side dishes warm and heating an iron for Tudor Tailor purposes.

Sophia

[Colin Middleton]

Diane (my wife) uses one too for her cosmetics, but they keep cracking. So she wants a larger, fire-box kind of affair that she can put 2 kettles on and keep them away from the fire, etc. That's one of the things that go me started on my investigations.

Many thanks

[Colin Middleton]

We'll I've had time to do a bit more digging and here's some pictures from the Medieval Pottery in the Yorkshire Museum book by Sarah Jennings.

[Colin Middleton]

And one more from the same book: