What on earth is an Earth Oven?

What is an earth oven and why on earth would anyone want one.  An Earth Oven or Cob Oven is a fairly primitive cooking device.  It is a wood fired oven made from a mixture of mud or clay, sand and straw, which is what "cob" is.  It is built to retain the heat from a fire built inside of it.

An earth oven can be used to bake bread, cook pizzas, or slow cook stews, roasts, or anything you would cook in a conventional oven.  

Now, I should disclose that I haven't yet made my own earth oven due to moving house several times in the last 2 years, becoming preoccupied with my vegetable garden this past summer and just a general character flaw of procrastination.  But this delay has allowed me much time for contemplation of my ideal oven.

In Portland, Oregon where I live it has become too cold for me to relish the idea of submerging my bare feet in cold mud, which is one of the essential steps in building.  So I will probably postpone this project until spring or summer.  But fear not, one summer evening I will be enjoying pizza or bread from my very own earth oven.

In the meantime I will continue to study other people's ovens, drawing inspiration from them.  As you will see from the photos in the links below and particularly in  Kiko's book, this material is very versatile and can be fashioned into the most fantastical shapes. 

The oven in the photo above is located at the fabulous Booneville Hotel, in Northen California. 

Don't you want to make your own oven?