Testul, the oldest bread oven

• The test is one of the oldest systems in Romania for baking bread, used especially in the rural area in the south of the country.

• The test-making technique is similar to that of primitive ceramics: it is shaped by hand and left to dry in the sun.

The Oltenia Plain, with its very fertile lands, has favored the cultivation of cereals since ancient times. The numerous archaeological vestiges, written testimonies, but also the multitude of beliefs and customs, reminiscences of some old agrarian rites, prove the fact that, for millennia, agriculture was one of the basic occupations of the inhabitants of these lands, something valid for the entire Carpatho-Danubian area.
Since the XNUMXth century BC, the Greek historian Xenophon speaks of "large leavened breads" that were prepared in these lands, and Pliny the Elder (XNUMXst century AD) mentions the existence of several species in Thrace of wheat and notes "very good tasting bread" (from millet), while on Trajan's Column scenes are represented in which Roman legionnaires harvest the fields cultivated by the Dacians.

Oltenia plain, historic granary

During the period of Roman rule, agriculture, the basic occupation of the inhabitants, experienced a wider development. Given the fact that the economic exploitation of Dacia was increasingly based on the exploitation of the land, today's Oltenia Plain represented a significant part of Dacia's granary. In the Oltenia Plain, economic life was dominated by agriculture in the following centuries as well. In the XNUMXth century, Priscus Panites (one of the messengers sent by the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II to the court of Attila) records in his notes on the inhabitants of the villages in today's territory of Romania that, at the feast, "they put bread on the tables".
The numerous tools related to the cultivation of cereals, the supply pits, as well as the vestiges of some installations for baking bread discovered during the archaeological excavations throughout this territory prove that cereals such as millet, wheat and rye played an important role in the nutrition of the population.

From unleavened cakes to bread

In the beginning, unleavened cakes were prepared from grains ground with the help of the grinder, which were baked in the hot "spuza" of the hearth. The hearth was made of a layer of river gravel covered with a thick layer of clay, of rammed earth, of bricks fixed in a layer of sand.
Over time, it came to the construction of special installations for baking bread. Along the way, as a result of the development of agriculture and the expansion of the areas cultivated with wheat, new systems were developed and perfected to improve the way of preparing cereals and, respectively, nutrition. The oldest systems for baking bread, used until today by the inhabitants of Olt county, are the dough and the oven on the hearth. The fact that these installations, which were used at the same time, are connected to the free hearth with a chimney proves once more their antiquity.

The dough is one of the oldest bread baking systems

The test is one of the oldest bread baking systems in Romania, used especially in the rural area in the south of the country. The name test comes from the Latin word "testum" which means clay pot, clay cover. The oldest test was discovered on the territory of Olt county - Fărcaşele commune - device dating from the 2002th century. It was found in 50, during the archaeological excavations organized in Fărcașu de Jos, about XNUMX m from the cemetery, in a half-buried dwelling (XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries). Another test discovered in the same year dates approximately from the XNUMXth century, and was also found in Fărcaşu de Jos, at the "La cimitir" point, also in a half-buried dwelling (XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries).
Compared to the large-sized oven, the test has the advantage that it heats up faster, "with sorrels, cobs, corn cobs and sunflower sticks" and that, in addition to leavened bread, unleavened bread, cakes, other foods are baked under it (pots, potatoes, meat).

Only women did tests

The technique of making the dough is similar to that of primitive ceramics: it is shaped by hand and left to dry in the sun. In the communes of Fărcaşele and Milcov, earthenware is still being made, this being a prerogative of women. We believe that the fact that only women take tests is the result of magical-religious implications that have persisted over time. The material from which dough is made in the villages of Olt county is clay (yellow earth) mixed with horse dung and sometimes with mud. This archaic mobile oven made of clay, according to a certain technique, was made at the beginning of the last century in an atmosphere full of magical beliefs. There were certain days, immediately after Easter, when groups of women would gather together and, following a thorough system of practices, they would press and shape clay samples.

Ropotin's magic keeps evil away from the test

Now nobody believes in certain practices, which the inhabitants of the villages from the beginning of the last century carried out rigorously. The magical atmosphere that once shrouded the weaving with its mystery has been shattered under the unforgiving modern breath. The old people remember, however, that the tests were done during the Ropotin festival. In most villages, the feast of Ropotin was held on the third Tuesday after Easter. There are also villages where these holidays were held three Tuesdays, three Thursdays and three Saturdays after Easter, or only on Thursdays after Easter. In the beliefs of the people, these days were true holidays which, "if they are celebrated, then the stone or the ice, that is, the hail, the apple trees and the sowing do not beat".
It is also said that "the Ropotinians are held to make the devil's burden harder by the earth they use to make clay". That is why this day was popularly called "The Day of the Murderer".

How were the tests done?

How were the tests done? The simple work of treading, kneading the earth with the feet and then placing it on a mound - form was also enveloped in a special atmosphere, of magical acts whose meaning has been lost over time.
Today, without knowing this meaning anymore, it is interesting to note that, by virtue of tradition, the dough is worked exclusively by women, gathered in collectives of 3-5 people, the clay mixed with horse dung and clods is kneaded with the feet of nine sometimes certain verses are said during the kneading. The clay prepared in this way is divided into "cuddles" and shaped by hand on a straw and leaf litter, in the shape of a bell placed upside down. Two holes are made in the upper part, through which the "iron of the dough" is inserted, with the help of which it hangs on the chain of the basket, when it is prepared for baking.

At the beginning of the 2th century, an informant from Olt county - Ciomăgești - said: "...Herds of women and girls go to the fields where the horses are grazing, to collect dung, then they come home, play with the soil with their feet, mix with the dung, make litter earth to give the shape of the dough, they are left in the sun for 3-XNUMX days, then they are put away for storage, after they have been washed well".

Work was preceded by feasts among women

The tests were done in groups of women, because the work was quite difficult. But we must not neglect the fact that such work was preceded by feasts among the women, and magical acts were not missing either, whether the test was sprinkled or washed with wine, or that, while they were working, those who passed by on the road did not they were allowed to give blessings.
Not without significance is the belief that, by stirring the earth, women trample the devil himself. On this day "women trample on skulls, so that the devil will be trampled underfoot and burned with fire like the skulls".
Another humorous but also meaningful belief is that women had the right to beat their men one day a year and, unable to beat them, they did tests.
The Geto-Dacian world of the Carpathians will have accepted this "killer's day" with its entire parade of pagan beliefs, which, as we have seen, also covers the making of the test.

A baker who eased the hard life

That this mobile oven has accompanied man in his difficult existence since the beginning, is indisputable. Not only the rudimentary baking system, but also the multitude of "vain" beliefs and magical practices they took into account, plead for this fact. If we ask ourselves, today, what significance all those exposed had for the human collectivities from the distant times, and even for many later ones, the answer also comes from the testimonies of the people and their entire lives. Powerless, dominated by the strange forces of nature, on the other hand obsessed with countless questions to which he could only give solution in a childish way, he created a world of his own. Naturally, this world was magical in nature.

As it follows from the etymology of the word and from the fact that the Greeks also used it for baking bread, the dough had a very wide distribution area, which includes Illyria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Albania, the south-western part of the Pannonian Plain, Romania, being known as far as the Caucasus. The use of the test corresponds, in Romania, to the area of ​​use of the hearth with a suspended hood ("corlata"), one of the most archaic forms, which once again proves its antiquity in this territory.

Magic and faith in the test tradition

The three Tuesdays, three Thursdays and three Saturdays after Easter, the feasts of Ropotin, were held as holidays only by women and only tests were allowed.
Against these holidays, as some that confused the Christian faith with their pagan character, the church stood up. Metropolitan Filaret of Râmnicui said in 1845: "The feast of the devil is more shameful or sinful for Christians. But it is very fitting for every good Christian and God-fearer not to celebrate that filthy holiday on that day, and for the babes to abandon the tests they do on that day, that is, in spite of the devil, as they say". Historians do not believe that the intervention of Metropolitan Filaret had any influence, since until late, at the turn of the XNUMXth century, there are so many testimonies that the feast of Ropotin was held with sanctity by women, a day when tests were done, precisely to appease the spirits bad, not to spoil their sowing and not to make anyone repent.
In the past, these holidays had a double function: in addition to baking cornmeal and unleavened cakes, they also had a magical function. The belief was general, "testicles were made to put them on the back of Kill the Crucea (or Kill the Cleaver), to stop him from being able to fool people", therefore "in these tests it is not good to bake alms bread".
In other villages, however, there is a belief that "after doing the tests, the women can work the rest of the day, because they have placed the test on the devil's head and therefore made him powerless, that is, he can no longer do any harm". Closely related to all of this, in the past, women from the villages of Olt County, after the tests were ready, made a cross over them.
It is undoubtedly a magical act that, through the Christian sign of the church, the world is protected from the evil spirits, closed under the clay bell of the test.

In connection with the whole series of beliefs and superstitions, we must also put the testimonies of many that the tests made on this day of Ropotin "are a cure, that is, during the dry season, a test is thrown into the well and it starts to rain, or a pregnant woman steals a test from a neighbor and takes it to a field of wheat or corn and the rain is ready".

Article made by the Editorial Office White Art