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A Samoan umu at the early stage of heating the rocks

An earth oven or cooking pit is one of the most simple and long-used cooking structures - a simple pit dug in the ground to hold heated materials for food to be cooked over. Earth ovens have been used in many places and cultures in the past. The presence of such cooking pits is a key sign of human settlement often sought by archaeologists.

Although there are many variations, the basic system is for fire-heated rocks in a pit to be covered with green vegetation, large quantities of food, more green vegetation, and then a final covering of earth. Cooking takes at least several hours.

Many ethnic communities still use cooking pits, at least for ceremonial or celebratory occasions. Examples are the Hawaiian luau and the Māori hāngi. The central Asian tandoor, used primarily for uncovered, live-fire baking, is a transitional design between the earth oven and the horizontal-plan masonry oven. In modern times, earth ovens are sometimes used for outdoor cooking and recreational meals in lieu of an open campfire.

In many areas archeologists recognise "pit-hearths" as being in common use in the past. In Central Texas there are large "burned-rock middens" apparently used for large-scale cooking of plants of various sorts, especially the bulbs of sotol. The Mayan pib and Andean watia are other examples.

The clambake, invented by Native Americans on the Atlantic seaboard and considered a traditional element of New England cuisine, traditionally uses a type of ad hoc earth oven (usually built in beach sand with heated rocks to retain heat and seaweed to add moisture) to cook shellfish and vegetables.

Earth oven cooking was very common in the past and continues into the present - particularly for special occasions.

In the closely-related Polynesian languages the general term is "umu" or similar - the Tongan 'umu, Māori umu or hāngi, Hawaiian imu, Samoan 'umu, Cook Island umu. In non-Polynesian parts of the Pacific, languages are more diverse so each language has its own term - in Fiji it's a lovo and in Rotuman it's a koua. (In Papua New Guinea, "mumu" - borrowed from Polynesian, is used by Tok Pisin and English speakers, but each of the other hundreds of local languages has its own word.)

Despite the similarities, there are many differences in the details of preparation, their cultural significance and current usage.

The Samoan umu is a common day-to-day method of preparing roasted foods with modern ovens being restricted to western style houses. In the traditional village house, gas burners will be used inside the house to cook some food in pots. The umu is sheltered by a roof in case of rain and is separate from the house. There are no walls which allows the smoke from the cooking to escape.

The Samoan umu starts with a fire to heat rocks which have been tested by fire and which have not exploded. These rocks are used repeatedly but eventually are discarded and replaced when it is felt that they no longer hold enough heat. Once the rocks are hot enough they are stacked around the parcels of food which are wrapped in banana leaves or aluminium foil. Leaves are then placed over the assembly and the food is left to cook for a few hours until it is cooked.

• (1997) "The Roasted and the Boiled: Food Composition and Heat Treatment with Special Emphasis on Pit-Hearth Cooking". Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16 (1): 1-48. .
• Brennan, Jennifer (2000), Tradewinds & Coconuts: A Reminiscence & Recipes from the Pacific Islands, Periplus, pp. 127-134, ISBN 9625938192.

• Recreating an Andean Earth Oven
• Recreating a Texas oven
• The Earth Oven or Cooking Pit
• Team Mumu Pit Cooking

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