In article >, Tim W > wrote:
>If a wood fired oven is used daily I thougth it might be a warm place for
>proving the loaves before it was lit, but I can't be right because the
>timing would still be all wrong, you would have to remove them and wait at
>least another hour while you fired the oven with faggots.

The kitchen itself is probably pretty warm most of the time.

>Anyway those timings can't be too accurate or critical in a world without
>clocks. They must equate almost to "prove for a short while then bake slow
>and long"

A fair point. Depending on where you were and local custom, there might be
fairly accurate clocks and/or ringing of church bells to get you pretty
close. On the other hand, once you've done it a few times, you probably
developed a pretty good idea of when it was ready to go into the oven.
(For that matter, "half an hour," might really mean "get the oven ready
and when it's ready put the bread in.")

A larger question is whether the recipe was actually intended to be used
or was intended as an illustrative example of "how things work."

JB
------------
Jeff Berry - http://www.aspiringluddite.com - food, musings, etc.