User:Fowler&fowler/Tandoor or Tannoor etc


 * DEAR SIR, WE left the convent of Datev, at 10 A. M. on the morning of the 4th of November, my last date. The bishop accompanied us to the village of Datev (see picture), about a mile distant, whither he was going to attend the last of the first eight masses said for the soul of his deceased superior. It contains according to one informant 50, and according to another 80 houses. As we stopped only a moment for a guide, we had no opportunity to examine it. A rain that had been drizzling all the morning, now became a driving snow storm, which completely impeded our prospect the remainder of our ride. With difficulty we climbed a mountain ridge, where the snow was already of considerable depth, and the wind and cold oppressive; and then, by a declivity fearfully steep, descended into the bottom of it deep confined valley, where we found the quiet village of Lor (see picture), at 2 P. M. ... (page 40) SUBSTITUTE FOR OVENS AND FIREPLACES. Our muleteers, not at all to our dissatisfaction, refused on account of the storm to go farther, although we had rode but two fúrsakhs; and we called upon the kakhia for lodgings. He welcomed us hospitably to his own family room. It was under ground, like all the houses of these mountains, and lighted only by an open sky-light in the centre, through which the snow was continually falling. In different parts, piles of grain were heaped upon the ground, which formed the floor. Here a deep wicker basket plastered with mud and cow-dung, answered the purpose of a flour-barrel; there was a large chest of bread, the principal food of the family. In a dark corner was a pile of carpets, matresses, cushions and coverlets for their accommodation at night; and in another direction stood a cradle, with its crying contents. (New paragraph) What attracted our attention most this stormy day, was the apparatus for warming us. It was the species of oven called tannoor, common throughout Armenia and also in Syria, but converted here for purposes of warmth into what is called a tandoor. A cylindrical hole is sunk about three feet in the ground in some part of the room, with a flue entering it at the bottom to convey a current of air to the fire which heats it . For the emission of smoke no other provision is made than the open sky-light in the terrace. When used for baking bread, the dough, being flattened to the thickness of common pasteboard perhaps a foot and a half long by a foot broad, is stuck to its smooth sides by means of a cushion upon which it is first spread. It indicates, by cleaving off, when it is done, and being then packed down in the family chest, it lasts at least a month in the winter and ten days in the summer. Such is the only bread known in the villages of Armenia; and even the cities of Eriván and Tebriz offer no other variety than a species perhaps only twice as thick, and so long that it might almost be sold by the yard. To bake it, the bottom of a large oven is covered with pebbles, (except one corner where a fire is kept constantly burning,) and upon them when heated, the sheets of dough are spread. The convenience of such thin bread, where knives and forks are not used and spoons are rare, is that a piece of it doubled enables you to take hold of a mouthful of meat more delicately than with your bare fingers; or, when properly folded, helps you to convey a spoonful safely to your mouth to be eaten with the spoon itself. When needed for purposes of warmth, the tannoor is easily transformed into a tandoor. A round stone is laid upon the mouth of the oven, when well heated, to stop the draught; a square frame about a foot in height is then placed above it; and a thick coverlet, spread over the whole, lies upon the ground around it, to confine the warmth. The family squat upon the floor, and warm themselves by extending their legs and hands into the heated air beneath it, while the frame holds, as occasion requires, their lamp or their food. Its economy is evidently great. So full of crevices are the houses, that an open fireplace must consume a great quantity of fuel, and then almost fail of warming even the air in its immediate vicinity. The tandoor, heated once or at the most twice in twenty-four hours by a small quantity of fuel, keeps one spot continually warm for the relief of all numb fingers and frozen toes.
 * (page 70) ACCOMMODATION AT KHOIK. The house, apparently the best in the village, was built throughout, floor, walls and terrace, of mud. Fortunately, as its owner had two wives, it had two rooms. The one assigned us, being the principal family apartment, was of course filled with every species of dirt, vermin and litter; and withal, as they were in the midst of the process of baking, the insufferable smoke of the dried cow-dung which heated their tannoor, or cylindrical oven, detained us a long time before we could take possession. Persuaded at last by impatience that the bread must be done, I entered, and found our host and chief muleteer shaking their shirts in the oven, to dislodge the "crawling creatures" that inhabited them. Though new to us then, we afterward found reason to believe that this use of the tannoor is common, and for it alone we have known it to be heated. In such ovens was our bread baked, by being stuck upon their sides, and though we would fain have quieted our fastidiousness by imagining that they were purified by fire, the nature of the fuel of which that was almost invariably made, left little room upon which to found such a conception. And as for the loathsome company of which our host and muleteer had thus attempted to rid themselves, we found them too constantly affecting our senses to think of imagining them away; for the traveller can hardly journey a day here, or in any part of Turkey, without their annoying him, and his only relief is in a constant change of his linen. The apartment was finally cleared and swept, but the old man could give us neither carpet nor mat, and our own painted canvass and travelling carpets were all that covered the ground on which we sat and slept.
 * (page 70) ACCOMMODATION AT KHOIK. The house, apparently the best in the village, was built throughout, floor, walls and terrace, of mud. Fortunately, as its owner had two wives, it had two rooms. The one assigned us, being the principal family apartment, was of course filled with every species of dirt, vermin and litter; and withal, as they were in the midst of the process of baking, the insufferable smoke of the dried cow-dung which heated their tannoor, or cylindrical oven, detained us a long time before we could take possession. Persuaded at last by impatience that the bread must be done, I entered, and found our host and chief muleteer shaking their shirts in the oven, to dislodge the "crawling creatures" that inhabited them. Though new to us then, we afterward found reason to believe that this use of the tannoor is common, and for it alone we have known it to be heated. In such ovens was our bread baked, by being stuck upon their sides, and though we would fain have quieted our fastidiousness by imagining that they were purified by fire, the nature of the fuel of which that was almost invariably made, left little room upon which to found such a conception. And as for the loathsome company of which our host and muleteer had thus attempted to rid themselves, we found them too constantly affecting our senses to think of imagining them away; for the traveller can hardly journey a day here, or in any part of Turkey, without their annoying him, and his only relief is in a constant change of his linen. The apartment was finally cleared and swept, but the old man could give us neither carpet nor mat, and our own painted canvass and travelling carpets were all that covered the ground on which we sat and slept.