leather cook pot

[willmc349]

I read somewhere that it's possible to cook in a leather pot. I was wondering if it's possible?

[Eledhwen]

I don't know about a leather pot, but I do know you can boil water in a hide. Dig a hole, wet a large hide thoroughly, place hide in hole, fill with water, drop hot rocks into water repeatedly until sufficiently boiled. Recommended; created a pebble, grass, sand, and charcoal filter of birchbark and strain boiled water through it.

As for cooking, as in soups and boiled meats and whatnot..I don't know. Since you can boil water in a hide, you can probably do these too. I'd make sure the hide was well tanned without modern chemicals though.

Eledhwen

[Straelbora]

I read somewhere that it's possible to cook in a leather pot. I was wondering if it's possible?

Cooking in leather pots figured frequently in Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" books, and I remember reading an interview with her in which she said that a fan tried it out- not dropping hot rocks into a leather pot, but actually putting the leather pot over a fire. Apparently, it's similar to the trick of putting a waxed paper cup full of water over a fire- the water will boil but the cut will remain intact.

[caedmon]

There are woodcut of this being done in Ireland in the 16th c. If I recall, it was a venison stew made in the skin of the deer being cooked. I'll see if I can drag up the woodcut.