>Another ancient method of cooking that hasn't been mentioned is pit
cooking.
>Stones are heated in the fire, and then buried in a pit with the food,
>sometimes for
>many hours. I've seen a documentry where Natives cooked an entire pig this
>way, the
>cooking taking around eight hours.


Yeah, that's called a luau, a traditional Hawaiian feast.  Lay down a bed of
super-heated large stones (gotta be big to hold plenty of heat), a layer of
taro leaves, the pig (split the long way) more taro leaves, other foods if
desired (often wrapped in taro leaves like tidy bright green postal
parcels), cover with dirt, party for 6-8 hours, dig up, enjoy!!!  Or at
least that's how they did it when Hawaii was still a territory....

laurie (Mother Mastiff) (geez, it wasn't all THAT long ago!!!)