Masonry oven India, tandoors are traditional clay ovens, although these days modern electrically fired tandoors are available. The open-topped tandoor is a transitional design between the earth oven and the Roman-plan masonry oven. In the precolumbian Americas, similar ovens were often made of clay or adobe and are now referred to by the Spanish term "horno" (meaning "oven"). Horns are also traditional in the American Southwest. The traditional direct-fired masonry design is often called a "Roman" or "black" oven and dates in Western culture to at least the Roman Republic. It is known as a black oven because the fire generates soot
Earth oven Dorset. Examples from these periods vary in form but are generally bowl-shaped and shallow in depth (30–45 cm) with diameters between 0.5 and 2 metres. Exceptions do exist, such as the Irish Fulacht fiadh in common use up to the Middle Ages. In Greek cuisine, there is also a tradition of "kleftiko" ("thief style") dishes, ascribed to anti-Turkish partisans during the Greek War of Independence, which involve wrapping the food in clay and cooking it in a covered pit, allegedly at first to avoid detection by Turkish forces. Earth oven An earth oven, ground oven or cooking pit is one