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| The Wood Fired Oven - From the Stone to the Refractory Bricks |
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| The wood fired oven. From the stone to the refractory bricks.
In ancient times the oven was thought as an instrument to cook every kind of meal: bread and pitta (the original name of the pizza) were the most widely known, but even meat and vegetables were cooked with the wood fired oven.
We have traces that the ovens were born before the roman period, centuries before Christ.
In Pompeii, near the place where the first pizza margherita was cooked, there are ovens with the same characteristics of modern ones with the only difference being in the materials.
Those ancient ovens were made with dried stones and clay. They had an igloo shape with the oven mouth very small that was used to insert the meals.
Today the ovens are available in refractory bricks or in stainless steel. The stone used for the dome has been replaced with lighter materials.
From the time the brick was born the oven has changed shape and structure. The igloo shape has been changed with the low dome that helps building the oven.
In 1889 Raffaele Esposito, a Neapolitan cook, during the visit of the Italian Queen Margherita di Savoia prepared a personalized pizza that contained the Italian flag colors: white, red and green; mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil. From that moment the pizza margherita was born and it is still the most cooked meal in the world.
In the 70s the oven changed shape again. From the bricks it turned to the refractory material. The refractory material brings several advantages. It is high thermic resistant and maintains the heat more compared to the oven with bricks. The refractory material is a melt of silico-aluminum that gives out the best cooking.
In latest years, new refractory domes have been developed with a lighter material that allows to heat the oven in a faster way. The refractory material changed the way of installing an oven. The modern modular ovens in fact are composed by pieces, so they are easy to be assembled even by not professional people.
This kind of oven needs first of all to be installed high enough to let the cook use it easily, secondary you need to install the base and then the dome, third, you need to insulate it with ceramic fiber and mortar in order to keep it thermic resistant. In fact, the more it is insulated, the best it will keep the oven hot. At the contrary, with a thin insulation, it would cool down fast. The wood fired oven can be insulated and left with the igloo shape, or recessed in a wall.
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