Not to be confused with Earthen oven."Imu" redirects here. For other uses, see IMU (disambiguation).
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A Samoan 'umu at the early stage of heating the rocks
An earth oven, ground oven or cooking pit is one of the simplest and most ancient cooking structures. The earliest known earth oven was discovered in Central Europe and dated to 29,000 BC.[1] At its most basic, an earth oven is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food. Earth ovens have been used in many places and cultures in the past, and the presence of such cooking pits is a key sign of human settlement often sought by archaeologists. Earth ovens remain a common tool for cooking large quantities of food where no equipment is available.[citation needed] They have been used in various civilizations around the world and are still commonly found in the Pacific region to date.
To bake food, the fire is built, then allowed to burn down to a smoulder. The food is then placed in the oven and covered. This covered area can be used to bake bread or other various items. Steaming food in an earth oven covers a similar process. Fire-heated rocks are put into a pit and are covered with green vegetation to add moisture and large quantities of food. More green vegetation and sometimes water are then added, if more moisture is needed. Finally, a covering of earth is added over everything. The food in the pit can take up to several hours to a full day to cook, regardless of the dry or wet method used.
Fijian lovo of cooked staples
Today, many communities still use cooking pits for ceremonial or celebratory occasions, including the indigenous Fijian lovo, the Hawaiian imu, the Māori hāngī, the Mexican barbacoa, and the New England clambake.[citation needed] The central Asian tandoor use the method primarily for uncovered, live-fire baking, which is a transitional design between the earth oven and the horizontal-plan masonry oven. This method is essentially a permanent earth oven made out of clay or firebrick with a constantly burning, very hot fire in the bottom.
An earthoven, ground oven or cooking pit is one of the simplest and most ancient cooking structures. The earliest known earthoven was discovered in Central...
oven A built-in oven fixture that has either two ovens, or one oven and one microwave oven. It is usually built into the kitchen cabinet. Earthoven An...
A masonry oven, colloquially known as a brick oven or stone oven, is an oven consisting of a baking chamber made of fireproof brick, concrete, stone, clay...
local indigenous variation of the primitive method of cooking in a pit or earthoven. It generally refers to slow-cooking meats or whole sheep, whole cows...
structures. At its simplest, an earthoven is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food. Earthovens have been used in many places...
areas to what is known as barbacoa, meats cooked or roasted in a pit or earthoven, in other regions of Mexico. For many people today, mostly in the United...
A tandoor (/tænˈdʊər/ or /tɑːnˈdʊər/) is a large vase-shaped oven, usually made of clay. Since antiquity, tandoors have been used to bake unleavened flatbreads...
bark. When it is completed they lay the body out flat on its back in the earthoven, then when it is baked ready they cut it up and eat it." Ta'unga commented:...
Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand; and braai in South Africa) is a term...
cooking throughout Oceania is the earthoven, a method which involves laying food on hot rocks and burying it in earth. The technique originated in Papua...
combination of reredos (a low, partial wall behind a hearth), fireplace, oven, smoke hood, or chimney. Hearths are usually composed of masonry such as...
or beef-head barbacoa, an entire beef-head traditionally roasted in an earthoven, but now done in steamer or grill. When sold in restaurants, customers...
temperature. It takes approximately between 8 and 12 hours to cook the roast. Earthoven Hāngī "The GASTROLAB Home Page in Finnish". Archived from the original...
Latin America and Spain. Barbacoa de Cabeza (roasting beef head in an earthoven), for example, is also a traditional common dish in South America, where...
Pachamanca (from Quechua pacha "earth", manka "pot") is a traditional Peruvian dish baked with the aid of hot stones. The earthen oven is known as a huatia. It...
vegetables buried below ground. Indigenous peoples around the world used earthovens for thousands of years. In modern times the term and activity is often...
coconuts, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and yams, and cooked meat and fish in earthovens. After first contact in 1778, European and American cuisine arrived along...
New Guinea, as well as other islands in the Pacific. It consists of an earthoven that is filled with hot coal or stones, that may be placed in different...
vegetables and fruit wrapped in banana leaves and roasted in umu pae – an earthoven. Po'e, pudding made of mashed bananas, pumpkin and flour is baked in the...
traditional Chilote method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in an earthoven that is covered with pangue leaves and turf. The fundamental components...
This ancient technique originates from Hadramout and involves a type of earthoven whereby meat is barbecued in a deep hole in the ground that is then covered...
contents are wrapped in banana leaves and are then buried to cook in a ground oven, which uses red-hot rocks heated by fire. After about two hours of cooking...
achiote and sour oranges then wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked in an earthoven beneath a wood fire. The dish is prepared with a firm white fish, usually...
went there and was horrified to spot the girl's severed head near an earthoven where a man was "preparing the four quarters of a human body for a feast"...
heat in the lowest segment. The original form of covered cooking is the earthoven, simply a covered pit with a fire built in it, demonstrated in techniques...
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