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Louisville's bread ovens

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Contributed by: Donna Feldman on 9/19/2007

I've never met a carbohydrate I didn't like, and bread is my absolute favorite. Not lame, sliced loaf bread. Give me crusty unsliced loaves that fight back when you bite into them. So I was very interested to learn about the old Italian bread ovens in Louisville. When Italian immigrants moved into the area, they of course had to have bread. And the traditional way to bake bread was in a large wood-fired outdoor oven. Outdoor cooking was a necessity, given the small size of the houses. Plus who wanted to fire up a wood oven in the kitchen during sweltering summers?

Many of Louisville's long-time residents remember the ovens, and they especially remember the bread. Don Ross lived in the "Little Italy" section of town, and remembers the oven at the Harney Farm. He always knew when they were baking because "I could smell it." Visitors were handed fresh bread and homemade butter. Yum! Helen Caranci remembers baking day at her home. Her mother tore pieces of dough off the rising loaves and fried them up to make 'pizza fritta', the kids' favorite snack, served with cinnamon sugar, honey or jelly. Yum again.

Modern designs for these ovens are available on the web. The old style ovens were built from scratch from traditional designs and inexpensive local materials. As described in an article by Marian Lastoka in The Louisville Historian Winter 2006 newsletter, the ovens were built up off the ground on pipes, topped with a large iron rectangle for the oven floor. The walls were built of fire brick and the whole thing was covered with stucco and a tin roof. The oven was heated by building a wood fire inside the box. The fire was stoked for hours before baking time, and the wood was burned down to ashes. After the ashes were swept out, the loaves were placed inside on the metal floor. The oven held the heat long enough to bake the loaves, up to 1-1/2 hours. Considering that dough preparation started the day before baking, this was a long process. Not something you did every day or so. Enough bread was baked for an entire week.

The recipe most people remember is one that used potato water, yeast, sugar, flour and salt. One days' baking might use 50 lbs of flour. There was so much dough, a large metal wash tub was used to mix it. One thing notably absent from the recipe is shortening, or oil. Yet the bread reportedly kept very well for a week. The thick crust probably helped keep moisture inside.

The oven at the Harney-Lastoka property fell into disrepair years ago, but was restored by an Eagle Scout troop a few years ago. Mr. Ross doesn't remember that it was ever used for baking since the restoration. He'd like to see the Historical Commission arrange to build an oven right on the Historical Museum property on Main St. What a great festival idea: Louisville Bread Days. If that ever happens, you can bet I'll be there with a washtub of dough, ready for that taste of crusty bread that fights back.

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Submitted By: Charmaine Robledo

posted on 9/19/2007 @ 4:49:41 PM

Rated Story

I adore bread. And rice. That bread oven looks neat.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Donna Feldman

Louisville , CO

Donna Feldman has posted 130 stories and 1 comment since joining on 9/14/2005. Donna Feldman 's average story rating is 4.9.

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