Another mode of baking bread is much used, especially in the villages. A pit is sunk in the middle of the floor of the principal room, about four or five feet deep by three in diameter, well lined with compost or cement. When sufficiently heated by a fire kindled at the bottom, the bread is made by the thin pancake-like flaps of dough being, by a peculiar knack of hand in the women, stuck against the oven, to which they adhere for a few moments, till they are sufficiently dressed. As this oven requires considerable fuel, it is seldom used except in those parts where that article is some what abundant, and where the winter cold is severe enough to render the warmth of the oven desirable, not only for baking bread, but for warm ing the apartment.
Another sort of oven, or rather mode of baking, is much in use among the pastoral tribes. A shallow hole, about six inches deep by three or four feet in diameter, is made in the ground : this is filled up with dry brushwood, upon which, when kindled, pebbles are thrown to concentrate and retain the heat. Meanwhile the dough is prepared ; and when the oven is sufficiently heated, the ashes and pebbles are removed, and the spot well cleaned out. The dough is then deposited in the hollow, and is left there over night. The cakes thus baked are about two fingers thick, and are very palatable. There can be little doubt that this kind of oven and mode of baking bread were common among the Jews. Hence, Ilezel very ingeniously, if not truly, conjectures (Real Lexicon, art. Brod' ) comes the +-on '190 of Gen. xl. 16, which he renders, or rather paraphrases, `baskets full of bread baked in holes,' not white baskets,' as in the Authorized Version, nor ' baskets full of holes,' as in our margin ; nor white bread,' as in most of the continental versions, seeing that all bread is white in the East. As the process is slower and the bread more savoury than any other, this kind of bread might certainly be entitled to the distinction implied in its being prepared for the table of the Egyptian king. That the name of the oven should pass to the bread baked in it, is not unusual in the East, just as the modern tadskeen (pan) gives its name (say ,pan-cake) to the cake baked by it. Hezel's conjecture that the oven in question is called a hole, -on in Hebrew, and that the bread baked by it is called therefrom holebread, is corroborated by, if not founded upon, a passage cited by Buxtorf in his Lex. Talmud: Faciunt fill foramen, vel cavitatem in terra, et calefaciunt earn igni coquuntque in ea panem, qui vocatur a -on cavitate ills in qua coctus est.' There is a baking utensil called in Arabic tajen which is the same word (nrytivou) by which the Septuagint renders the Hebrew nnrn machabath, in Lev. ii. 5. This leaves little doubt that the ancient Hebrews had this tajen. It is a
sort of pan of earthenware or iron (usually the latter), flat, or slightly convex, which is put over a slow fire, and on which the thin flaps of dough are laid and baked with considerable expedition, although only one cake can be baked in this way at a time. This is not a household mode of preparing bread, but is one of the simple and primitive pro cesses employed by the wandering and semi wandering tribes, shepherds, husbandmen, and others, who have occasion to prepare a small quantity of daily bread in an easy off-hand manlier. Bread is also baked in a manner which, although apparently very different, is but a modification of the principle of the tajen, and is used chiefly in the houses of the peasantry. There is a cavity in the fire-hearth, in which, when required for baking, a fire is kindled and burnt down to hot embers. A plate of iron, or sometimes copper, is placed over the hole, and on this the bread is baked.
Another mode of baking is in use chiefly among the pastoral tribes, and by travellers in the open country, but is not unknown in the villages. A smooth clear spot is chosen in the loose ground, a sandy soil—so common in the Eastern deserts and harder lands—being preferred. On this a fire is kindled, and when the ground is sufficiently heated the embers and ashes are raked aside, and the dough is laid on the heated spot, and then covered over with the glowing embers and ashes which had just been removed. The bread is several times turned, and in less than half an hour is sufficiently baked. Bread thus baked is called in Scripture M37 'uggah (Gen. xviii. 6 ; r Kings xvii. 13 ; Ezek. iv. 12), and the indication, 1 Kings xix. 6, is very clear my O'DS1 'uggath retzafim (coal-cakes), i. e., cakes baked under the coals. The Septuagint expresses this word 'uggath very fairly by bykpoplas, panis sub cinericius (Gen. xviii. 6 ; Exod. xii. 39). Accord ing to Bosbequius (Zan. p. 36), the name of Hugath, which he interprets ash-cakes, or ash bread, was in his time still applied in Bulgaria to cakes prepared in this fashion ; and as soon as a stranger arrived in the villages, the women baked such bread in all haste, in order to sell it to him. This conveys an interesting illustration of Gen. xviii. 6, where Sarah, on the arrival of three strangers, was required to bake `quickly' such ash-bread though not for sale, but for the hospitable entertain ment of the unknown travellers. The bread thus prepared is good and palatable, although the outer rind, or crust, is apt to smell and taste of the smoke and ashes. The necessity of turning those cakes gives a satisfactory explanation of Hos. vii. 8, where Ephraim is compared to a cake not turned, e., only baked on one side, while the other is raw and adhesive.