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Building a fire

Managing the fire is probably the most important part of any roasting. To make the fire manageable, thought must be given to its location and design.

The primary role of the fireplace is to radiate the heat from the burning fuel towards the roast. You do not need polished mirrors to reflect the radiation towards the roast. A brick wall, stack of sticks or bank of earth will suffice.

The fireplace performs a second useful function. It provides a wind break. Even a gentle breeze will fan the embers to an inferno which will destroy the roast if not checked. So the fireplace needs to restrict the amount of air that can enter and allow you some measure of control.

The wind will also whisk up the ash and embers and scatter them about. You need to identify the direction of the prevailing wind. If you live in Britain, the prevailing wind blows from the west except when a northerly or easterly airflow bring snow. If you orient the open side to of your fire towards the south east, you should be safe.

The other important design consideration must be the way fuel is added. Ideally you want to be able to add fuel at the rear of the fire so that it warms before starting to burn when it reaches the face of the fire.

It is also important to remember that human beings have to maintain the fire. A good fireplace must protect them from the heat when they are working on the roast or fuelling the fire. You don’t want to roast yourself.

The larger the carcass, the more care you must lavish on the design and maintenance of the fire. It is possible to lift a chicken or a lamb away from a fire that gets too hot but is impractical for a hog or an ox. You need to construct one that gives you the ability to control which you must therefore manage throughout the roasting process.

Never be tempted to build a fire under the spit. Fat will drip onto the embers creating clouds of choking smoke before bursting into flames. The result will be disastrous. The flames will liberate more fat from the carcass, fuelling the blaze. This volatile scenario is familiar to every barbeque chef. A piece of steak or fish can be seared in this way for a few second to seal the surface and enhance the ultimate flavour. A large roast on the spit will be reduced to charcoal before it is possible to rescue it.

A wall or a pit?

A good fire must balance competing requirements. A fire built all round the roast would be ideal but impossible to build or maintain. It can be achieved with electric or gas grill but not with fires. There are 2 basic fire designs that work, the wall and the pit fire.

The wall design is equivalent to a domestic fireplace. The fire sits on a grate and the heat is thrown forward by the firebricks at the back. A pit is like a bonfire or barbecue with the single provision that there is no fire below the spit. A pit roast starts with a bonfire which is later raked to produce 2 piles of embers either site of the spit. The pit has the great advantage that it cooks the meat from both sides once the fire is broken down and divided either side of the spit.

A pit is suitable when the roast is to be removed at the end for carving and serving. It is impossible to lean over the pit to carve.

The advantage of the pit is that it takes little preparation and requires no materials. A garden can be de-turfed. The rolled back turf provides the sides and a little extra digging to shape the pit and the job is done. The suggested dimensions might seem alarming. The fire must extend well beyond both ends of the joint to cook the shoulders and rump. These areas are often ‘shaded’ by the legs. Extending the fire makes sure they receive the required heat.

A pit is an efficient fuel burner. The air can only reach the burning surface which allows ensures that fuel buried in the centre of the fire has to wait its turn to burn. New fuel is placed around the edge and drawn in as the fuel burns. It is also good for spectators who can watch without risking their bodyhair or shrinkage of smart, synthetic fashion clothing. The embers stay in the pit and the fire is not much disturbed by the wind and weather. The updraft is not sufficient to prevent rain reaching the roast or the fire but a strategically placed umbrella can deflect the worst.

The final thing to be said in favour of a pit is that, once the fuel has burned and the ground has cooled, the soil can be shovelled back and the turf replaced. Some cathartic bashing with the back of the spade will stitch the wounds in the grass. Liberal watering for the next few days will ensure that the pit becomes a memory. This is not to say that you should build it in the middle of the tennis court but it won’t destroy your lawn.

It is not absolutely necessary to dig a large, flat hole. Around the Mediterranean the pit is created with a circle of rock, bricks or stone which confines the hearth. Fuel is then fed from the back. A stack of sticks is built at the rear of the embers to throw the radiation towards the roast.

The drawback of this ‘open pit’ design is its relative inefficiency. Too much air can enter reach the fuel that it burns quickly. You can control this to an extent by selecting the right fuel. Closely packed charcoal or coke burns slowly. Heat is thrown out in a direction. Managing the fire has to be done quickly. The only comfortable place is at either end of the spit.

A wall fireplace needs careful construction. You are going to place a ton of bricks on the ground so you must choose some solid ground. It makes sense to cut the turf from the area and level it before laying the first course of bricks. A plentiful supply of unskilled labour, a spirit level and several pairs of building gloves are vital.

It takes a prodigious number of bricks. Very few of the brick will show any signs of the fire. So you should be able to ‘borrow’ these from a friendly builder or demolition site. ‘Ordinary’ bricks are fine. There is no need to use special engineering bricks.

The wall is built dry and 2 brick thick. Seek advice from a builder if you are unsure how to bond the bricks and the side wall. Some skill is required to bond the metal bars that will support the fire.

Warning

The spit must in all circumstances be offset from the fire. There is not a single exception to this rule. The stoker must understand that the fire cannot be allowed to stray under the roast. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security as it can take some time for the fat to become mobile or, in the case of a lamb or hog roast, for breaches the outer surface. When it does things can go wrong too fast for any action to be taken. So never place the spit over the fire.

The ground below the roast can get hot enough to ignite the fat if it is not being caught in a tray. The fire has to be offset by at least 30 cm.

There is a good culinary for placing the meat to the side of the fire. The roast is cooked by the radiant heat from the fuel. The meat does not want to be in the path of the gases rising from the fire. The hot air will dry the meat and there is a risk that you will end up with hot, dry, smoked meat.

Both wall and pit fires allow the first stage of ignition and combustion to take place in a way that will not affect the roast. For a wall fire, the fuel is introduced at the top and burns down until the ash falls out of the grate. When a pit fire is used, fuel is fed from the outside edge and the embers then pushed towards the roast.

It is vital to maintain a steady fire. This can only be achieved by constant vigilance. Fuel must be fed steadily to avoid the dampening effect that adding cold fuel can produce. Both the wall and the pit fire designs allow new fuel to be added without getting in the way of the glowing embers and interrupting the flow of heat from the embers to the roast. It is important to ensure that the enthusiastic amateurs who offer to help stoke the fire understand the importance of their role and the need make sure that the heat flow uninterrupted towards the roast.

Timing

You need to get the fire going well in advance. You need a ‘stoker’. They can get their hands dirty and can safely be set to work on the fire while the roast is being attached to the stang. If you are working alone roasting a lamb, for example, then prepare the roast and set it aside before starting work on the fire.

It takes an hour for the fire to settle down. This allows the smoke and fumes from the kindling to blow away before the roasting starts. If you are using wood, the volatile components burn, or rather ‘smoke’ away, leaving a bed of glowing carbon which will do the cooking. Remember, you are roasting rather than smoking the meat. Whatever fuel you are using, you do not want the flavour of most smoke to reach the meat.

There is a particular danger that the petroleum taint from starting fuels. These can penetrate the meat and will not be dissipated during subsequent cooking. Therefore avoid bringing the stang to the fire until it has settled down.

As a rival attraction, the fire will draw spectators away from the tussle the roasting team to put a large carcass on the stang which is not always a pretty sight. The early stages of a fire should be the most spectacular as the flames leap, especially after dark.

The role of the fuel is to glow so that it radiates its heat towards the roast. The type of fuel has little effect on the meat if the fire is managed correctly. While a short and dilute scent of burning wood is attractive, it is not the flavour that you want to permeate the food.

Roasting a large carcass is no excuse for felling a few trees. Logs are very attractive and the smell of wood smoke adds its special aroma to the roast, although care must be taken that the smoke does not contaminate the meat. A pile of logs for the photogenic moments and to conceal the bags of ‘real’ fuel being used. Such subterfuge is practised by all artists and performers so accept the offer of logs from an old tree if it is offered.

Young, resinous wood from pine trees is particularly aromatic. A small quantity of such wood can impart a strong and not very pleasant taint to the meat. However, such wood can be successfully used as it is each Easter in Greece but the locals are careful to add the fuel to the outside of the fire. The volatile components are carried away on the wind to entertain the diners without spoiling their feast.

Wood is an attractive proposition until you have to stack and feed a fire for an 18 hour ox roast. Other drawbacks of wood are its unpredictable burning characteristics, a tendency to crack and spit and difficulty of getting the close packing vital of the fuel is not to burn away too quickly. These do not, in my view, overcome the romance of burning wood for anything other than a small roast.

The burning of wood can be seen as a 2 stage process. The first step is to drive off all the volatile gases to produce charcoal which is the bit that gives out the heat.

Craftsmen labour in forests to reduce unmanageable branches to pieces of charcoal that you can handle. Charcoal, rather than wood, is the fuel of choice. But it is very expensive and another source of fuel of very similar composition is available in the form of various smokeless formulations.

Smokeless fuel is easy to handle but lacks some of the romance. The fuel maintains an excellent glow on the exposed surface thereby throwing out its heat in the direction of the roast.

Control

The best way to check is the fire is hot enough is to look at the roast. However, a hand held at the same distance as the roast will soon tell you if the fire is too hot. If you can keep your hand in position for more than 10 seconds the fire is not hot enough, if you have to pull it away after just a few seconds the fire is probably too hot.

The structure of the fire is crucial to the control. Restricting the flow of air is the only to regulate the burning. Air will enter anyway it can. Careful poking of the embers will keep the fire compact and restrict access for oxygen. Poking the fire can also keep the surface glowing and kicking out more heat. So poking the fire will slow down the burn rate but will increase the amount of heat escaping to cook your roast. In the hands of an attentive expert, the heat flow remains constant.

What if the fire gets our of hand or the roast requires some urgent attention. In an emergency, fuel or ash can be dumped on the embers to dampen it down by restricting the amount of air reaching the fuel. The effect of adding more fuel is likely to be short lived. After a short time the fire will be hotter than before. The interval might be enough to allow the roast to be removed if that is essential.

Ash, on the other hand, does have a longer lasting effect on the output of the fire. It works by reducing the amount of air reaching the fuel. Keep a few buckets of ash handy to apply to hot spots or to dampen down the fire by starving it of air.

It is easier to just rotate the stang faster to carry the heat away and prevent spoiling until the fire settles down than to attempt remedial action. This works best for a wall fire where only 30-45% of the roast is facing the fire but less effective for a pit where 60% of the roast is exposed. Provided the heat can be radiated away on the cold side it is worth turning.

So..

A successful roast needs a good fire. The fire needs to be deigned and constructed to suit the roast, the fuel and the environment. The fuel and the stoker do the work. The former has a simple task of chucking out heat without flame or smoke. The latter requires skill, good judgement, energy, focus and a lot of liquid to refresh them.

Trenchers

Bread acted as the plate for many centuries. It performed this service in the domestic setting as well as during feasts. These lumps of coarse bread were trenchers. Their use survived into the sixteenth century trenchers. Indeed the hamburger bun and Yorkshire pudding could be viewed as an evolution of the trencher. However, platters and bowls made form clay, wood, or metal coexisted with trenchers at the table. Gradually these reusable materials replaced baked dough as the individual plate.

The word itself derives from the French verb trancher, to cut, which betrays the origin of the design. A trencher was made for each meal by cutting a slice off the loaf. During a feast, several trenchers could be cut for different courses. The ‘Goodman of Paris’ gives the dimensions of a trencher as 'half a foot wide and four inches high.'

A diner might have cut their own or have been provided with one by ‘mine host’. It was a courtesy to cut a trencher for another and pass it on the tip of a knife. Modern bread would not work well. But the solid, coarse and inevitably somewhat stale bread of all previous eras worked well. It was absorbent and structurally sound even when it had soaked up the juices of the dish.

It was hygienic and very practical. Much domestic food consisted of boiled meat and pulses. When ladled onto the trencher the juices would soften the bread and make it possible to scoop up a morsel of meat, caked in sauce-soaked, softened bread. The experience would have been very similar to eating cous-cous in the traditional way.

During a feast, one trencher would be used for the meat dishes. This might have been cut thinner as there was little juice to absorb. A clean trencher was expected at the end of the meat course when cheese, sweet meat and delicacies were served. Good form at the feast required diners to leave their trencher.

There is a phoney dispute about the design of trenchers. There would not have been a single design. Every loaf that emerges from the oven is unique, and bakers are skilful and imaginative folk. The shape would depend on the grain used and that would depend on the locality, the harvest and the season. There was no unique design for a trencher.

Small barley loaves would have been small and dense. These were probably just split but a rye bread trencher could have worked well if sliced from the load. Wheat could easily have produced flat, leaven bread which is still employed in many parts of the world to wrap a meal. The texture had to be close to hold the gravy and firm enough to be moved about.

A lump of baked dough could be used to hold salt, and candles. Flour paste was used to construct decorated subtleties which provided centrepieces for the table and to coat meat for cooking.

Used trenchers, full of sauces and covered in bits of food, might be left for the poor or tossed to the dogs. It soaked up gravy, and could be eaten by the diner. Anybody who ate their trencher must have been particularly hungry. The term ‘trencherman’ is still applied to a person with such an impressive appetite.

The double-decker trencher has experienced a revival for the service of hamburgers. For feasts, a round bun, left to rise beyond the optimal time before applying a liberal coating of egg glaze. This has the effect of producing a concave top surface with excellent waterproof characteristics. The addition of 20% rye produces the density, flavour and keeping properties to withstand the rough handling at a mass feast.

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