Kanoon (Stove)

November 11, 2015  •  Category: ,

kanoon

I recently had the opportunity to take part in an informal class on how to make a kanoon, which is a primitive-type of stove or burner. Our ancestors used them in the rural areas to heat their foods or drinks. I was thrilled to learn that a lady in a Shouf village was still making them and was willing to impart her knowledge.

A kanoon is made with a paste made-up of adobe, donkey dung and straw, shaped by hand and dried in the sun till set. I had been reading a book on Tunisian cuisine and saw that back in Tunisia, they used the same implement in the kitchen and it is called by the same name. Who knows, maybe this was a Phoenician import into North Africa from the Lebanese coastline!


Here below are a few pictures of the process. It is similar to working with play dough or wet clay. Once the “dough” is shaped, building the kanoon can take a couple of hours and drying it a whole day in the dry heat. Then it is ready to be used. We actually used it later on to make Turkish coffee, by filling it with coal.

making dough
making dough

shaping it
shaping it

initial shape
initial shape

building it
building it

dips fingers in water
dips fingers in water

saving it
saving it

after drying
after drying

figs
figs

This was a nice treat by our instructor, plucked from her garden.

Comments

6 Comments  •  Comments Feed

  1. Velva says:

    I love these types of traditions handed down from generation to generation. This is incredible.

    Velva

  2. Lorraine Hussain says:

    Hi I am from Malta and in olden days we used a similar stove which we callled kenur ….we were a port of call for the Phoenician tradesmen as Malta is in the middle of the Mediterranean sea so most probably that is how it is so similar. Ours were carved out of fire resistant stone….http://maltaphoenix.yuku.com/topic/109/The-Kenur-The-Stone-Cooker#.VkRd2dKrRdg

  3. lara says:

    Love it! Reminds me of my grandma 🙂

  4. MyKabulKitchen says:

    Joumana, this is so neat! I am catching up on your blog as I got overwhelmed with my studies past few months, but I love your interesting posts, I think we had something like this in the villages back in the day…my father says it is familiar…but I am not sure as things have changed so much, thank you for sharing 🙂

  5. Claudette Cassab says:

    Je prĂ©sume que ce que vous appelez “paste made-up of adobe, donkey dung and straw” dont sont fabriquĂ©s les Kanoon n’est autre que de la terre glaise.
    (définition du larousse: Terre argileuse, plastique et imperméable, servant à la fabrication des briques, des tuiles et des objets de poterie. On dit aussi terre glaise.)

    Pour la petite histoire je suis fille d’un loubnani de Beyrouth et d’une mère française.
    Je vis actuellement au Portugal (au climat tres semblable a celui de notre moyen orrient!)
    Merci pour vos belles recettes qui me rappellent les tablĂ©es de mon enfance….

Add a Comment