Posted 10 years ago
ho2cultcha
(5042 items)
This giant hunk of iron is so heavy that it takes two people just to lift the lid off it and 2 or 3 people to lift the pan up without the cover on it. the underside of the cover is interesting - it has lots of bumps on it. i'll post a photo of that later on. I'd love to know what this pan was used for. any ideas? it was found in the bay area - in a garden of an amateur geologist who passed away a few years ago. He had lots of collections of things from the Sierra. i categorized it under kitchens and skillets, but i have no idea what it actually is.
This is a dutch oven. The high rim on the top is so you can pile hot coals on it to cook from the top as well as the bottom. The bumps you mention on the inside of the lid are so when the juices condense on the lid they drip down on the meat in the pot evenly. Are there any markings on the bottom?
I will comment on this also, from family lore only. Back during the depression people had little. They gathered in back yards and shared a common pot. Everyone put something in and everyone ate from the pot. I remember to this day my father saying "Put something in the pot". We had one but it was never used. It was just there to see and remind people of times gone by that were not so good.
except that i'm not exaggerating about how heavy this is. it takes two people to lift just the lid and up to 3 people to lift the skillet - and that's empty! this thing is huge! the reason for the bumps is interesting though! i'll check to see if there's anything on the bottom sometime in the next few days when i have my crew, to help me move the darn thing!
i just added some more pics to show the size and the underside of the cover. what kind of foods would have been cooked in this giant thing? any ideas as to how old it is or who made it?
Love it! I have the normal Coleman version to this LoL
I remember hearing stories, or maybe I saw it in a movie, about everyone adding something to the community pot. Wonderful sharing story, I'd imagine a great time spent cooking and conversating. I love some of the poverty dishes like fried bread topped with jelly, Butter noodles with salt and pepper, etc.
There was a picture of one of these in the Rapid City Journal a couple of weeks ago, with a man who ran a local Dutch Oven Catering Co. His looked like about the same size. That is Rapid City South Dakota. These could have been used for Rocky Mountain Oysters during the round ups.
Cowboy cookin' at its best...
Let's see a Picture of the Bottom of the Dutch Oven. Those "Bumps" are for Basting. Moisture from steam would collect on the Lid and drip down on whatever being roasted. More info coming.
we would take six of them ...dig a big fire pit ...burn wood most of the day ...till we had a load of coals ..take the pot fill it with beans and pork and maybe one with a qt of jb.for the boys...... ..line the edge where the lid touches the pot with doe run a wire thru the handles and threw the top but not tight letting it be able to rise a little when it cooks so the dirt cant get in.... then cover them over with 3 ft of dirt and let them cook over night ... yum yum ...some ham's cooking in the pit ... corn in the pots boiling ,hmmmm im hungry now ...
wow! i hadn't seen all these great responses! thank you Aimathena, rocker-sd, bentonhavin, SINternet, and Roycroftbooksfromme1! i'll get a pic up of the bottom of it as soon as i get help to pick it up and turn it over. it's extremely heavy!
Any markings? Also an item of this size is a Camp Oven. Where was this found?
no markings on the bottom. it was found in the yard of a geologist who passed away here in the East Bay. we cleaned up the yard for the sale of the house and got to keep lots of the little treasures we found there.
Nice find! when do we come over for the BBQ!
Oh what a great piece!
Being discussed here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/griswold/
I can say its being looked into but no promises as there are many pieces of Cookware made from all over with no distinguishing markings which limit definitive answers to original unless comparable items with markings are found. My guess is the date range is 1920 to 1950.
wow! thank you SINternet! it's really getting a lot of attention there. i a giant quartz crystal in the same yard. it's a single crystal, but it weighs something like 60 lbs. it's enormous!
a barbecue does sound like a good idea bbrunelle! anyone up for a bbq at my native plant nursery in oakland? it's filled w/ interesting little treasures and word hasn't really got out that i collect and sell all kinds of interesting things yet.
there's more pics of it here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjUGqEAq
A BBQ sounds nice. I used to live in Fairfield, Travis AFB and Suisun from the 60's to the 70's.
I picture of the bottom is needed.
Hi SINternet. i just posted more photo of it here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjUGqEAq
Great and very interesting find!
thank you Virginia.vintage!
Ho2cultcha - did Darin Rieck used to work for you? I'm across the bay in Redwood City! Darin a is a good friend and I know he worked at a Nursery over there for a while.
No Celiene. i've never heard of him.
LOL - must have been a different nursery over there! It was on MLK Blvd. near the 60's streets. Like 65th street, I think. It was in Oakland and I think they specialized in succulents & Cacti?
The construction of the handle is classic Lodge cast iron cookware. These were sold as "Shallow Country Ovens" from 1915 - 1940s.
The handle itself tells me that it was probably manufactured before sometime before the 1940s.