Saturday, June 12, 2010

Pit Opening



On Thursday morning, my uncle Francis opened the pit ovens. He carefully removed the surface dirt and dug down to the wool blanket separating the various layers. Then he removed much of the hay by hand, and gave some to the observers as a demonstration of the heat. Even after the fire cooled, the hay was still quite hot to the touch. Finally, he removed the bags of moss we had buried three days before.



The moss shrinks during the cooking process. The bags start out large and full, and eventually cook down to flat sheets or cakes.



My auntie Iva and I had the opportunity to separate the moss from its cooking bag.



The moss turns jet black and the onions turn sweet as candy. Many of the young people don't like moss, or maybe they don't try it because of its appearance, but I love it. In the picture above, the heat rising from the moss fogged my camera lens.



Francis demonstrated a handmade flute.



Aftger removing the food from the pits, we enjoyed a wonderful community dinner. We all had a great time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, that looks amazing. moss as in moss that grows on trees??

Barry Moses (Sulustu) said...

Yep.

Actually, it´s not really moss. It's a lichen, but people often call it moss.

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