Sunday, April 25, 2010

FORNO




With leftover bricks from the wood kiln construction Cody and I built a Forno--an Italian inspired wood oven for making pizza, stromboli, focacciao and griglia mista. The front is faced with handmade earthenware tiles sporting maiolica painting and glaze decals from Gubbio donated by my friend R.G. Brown. The chimney is thrown and altered earthenware featuring the Re del Forno with a cigar that smokes when the chimney is going.
According to my art history professor friend Tom Pitts the term Fornication comes from the Latin root word Forno. The word Fornix means arch and the bread ovens then were constructed of barrel vaulted arches. Fornicato means done near the archway--as the ladies of the evening in ancient Rome entertained their gentlemen callers near the bakery district and on the cold winter evenings would ply their trade close to the Forno to stay warm.
Nonetheless, the Forno is up and going and hopefully we will be entertaining more genteel ladies while cooking various dishes in the new wood oven.

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