Baking in Hot Sand

from Paula Wolfert's 'Mediterranean Grains and Greens' p.32

"I once tasted a marvelously aromatic and touchingly frugal
flatbread baked in the Saharan sands. Mohammad Melke's family
comes from the Tunisian Sahara.
....[text omitted]
....Mohammed prepared the dough in a wide wooden dish. He
gradually worked in the lukewarm water, using his knuckles. ...
As the dough was resting, he, Ismael, and I walked about,
collecting pebbles and dried brush. We stopped when our stack of
bruch was three feet tall. This, Mohammed told me, would be
enough to heat the sand beneath for baking.
He used a spade to prepare the sand, setting out a bed of
small stones on one side, then piling the brush next to it.
Finally he set the brush on fire.
While it burned, he returned to the dough, which had risen
only slightly. He divided it into softball-size balls, worked
each ball smooth, then set it beneath a wool blanket on a wooden
plank.
When the brush was reduced to ashes, he dug a hole in the
sand directly beneath, which by then had grown extremely hot. He
then brought out the first ball of dough, which he flattened to a
1.5 inch thick disk 12 inches in diameter. He placed the disk on
the hot sand, then shoveled more hot sand on top.
The hotter sand is on top so the bread bakes from the top
down, he explained. He could tell when it was time to turn the
bread by checking to see if sand stuck to the dough. When the
bread was half cooked, the sand no longer clung. He scraped back
the sand and ashes, flipped the disk, then buried it again. When
the bread was baked he let it rest of the hot pebbles while he
cooked the next loaf.
The bread that came out was flecked with black spots,
perfumed by the smoke and ashes of the burning brush. ..."

_______________________________
And from Copeland Marks' 'The Great Book of Couscous' p.246

"Lamb barbecued in hot sand

Here again the ingenuity of the desert Beduin and Berber is
brought out in the preparation of these brochettes.
Boneless lamb is cut into 1 inch cubes and threaded on metal
skewers, alternating with tomato and onion slices. The skewers
are sprinkled with salt and pepper.
A hole is dug in the desert sand and a fire built in it. A
clay pot (tajine) deep enough to hold and support the brochettes
upright is placed in the fire. Hot charcoal is heaped around the
pot, which operates like an oven. The brochettes are put in the
pot, the pot is covered with the lid, then with hot sand and the
brochettes inside bake for 1/2 hour.
The tagine is removed from the fire and opened. The lamb is
roasted with all the flavor locked in. Simple and effective."

cheers,
jodie