Baking Monster Cookies in the Village
During the month that our family lived in Awalmade Village, Papua New Guinea, I learned many things about cooking over an open fire. It's not really knowledge that you can explain verbally, you just kind of get a "feel" for it. For example, knowing how hot the fire has to be to cook but not burn, and when do you need to start "turning down" the heat in order to finish things well. We made a village pizza by cooking the dough on the first side, then flipping it over, adding the toppings, and covering the skillet to melt the cheese. I have a feeling that if we'd been served this pizza in the U.S., we might've turned our noses up at it. But, in Awalmade Village, it tasted great!! This is a pot oven. You put about two inches of sand inside and then set some clean tuna cans on top of that. The sand spreads out and holds the heat from the fire so that there is a more consistent temperature inside the oven. Keep the lid on to hold in the heat and you ac