Italian Bread Oven Built From Memory

Italian Bread Oven Built From Memory FARM HOME Kitchen 32-3-40 One of Frank Aiello's best childhood memories is the fragrance and taste of large round loaves of bread lovingly baked by his Italian parents and grandparents in an Italian bread oven. "My grandmother, mother and aunts would all get together once a week to bake bread together at the home we were living in at the time in Iowa," says the Violin, S. Dak., resident. Last summer Frank decided to build his own oven. Both he and his wife, Judy, say the taste and texture of foods cooked in the oven are quite different than food cooked in a conventional stove. "Bread just gets so brown and crisp," Judy says. "Cheese on pizza is just liquid, it gets so hot. Pizza cooks in about three or four minutes." Because he couldn't recall exact dimensions of his family's oven, Frank researched brick oven designs and settled on one closely resembling the oven he remembered He wasn't skilled in working with cement or laying brick, but found he could do most of the work himself. "Maybe there are some mistakes I haven't found yet, and I probably could have imported one for the same cost or less, but I wanted to see if I could do it," Frank says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Frank Aiello, 30174 448th Ave., Volin, S.Dak. 57072 (ph 605 263-0266).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.