>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!!!)