By Laudia Sawer
Tema, May 22, GNA- Some bakers in Tema say switching from traditional clay ovens to aluminium ovens in baking has drastically reduced work overload and bread-making stress.
Ms Glady Afari, the manager of No Break Bakery in Tema Community 1, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that she had not regretted switching from the clay oven to the aluminium one.
Ms Afari said initially, due to her attachment to the old oven, she was reluctant to switch but had to do so after residents reported her to the assemblyman for air pollution during baking.
She said that, unlike the clay oven, she could bake at any time without offending the residents, explaining that with the clay oven, she had to burn firewood for hours before the bricks of the oven would get heated up.
She added that in the process, smoke engulfed the community; therefore, she could only embark on the process of baking late in the evening when people were in their rooms and had to wait for hours to ensure that the firewood burned into ashes, with periodic spreading of the fire in the oven.
Ms Afari further added that the wood ash would then have to be swept out of the oven and inside cleaned, ready for the dough to be put in, indicating that if the oven did not heat up well, the bread could sink, and if it overheated, the bread would be burned.
According to her, apart from that sometimes the firewood came with reptiles, recalling how a scorpion bit one worker while putting the wood into the oven.
This, she said, had become a thing of the past, as she could bake and regulate the heat without any danger.
“I have seen that a lot of differences existed between the two. The baking time of the aluminium oven depends on when you want the bread; for instance, if you want to bake it in the morning or at any time, you just put in your dough, and within an hour the bread is ready. No smoke, no stress involved,” she stated.
Ms Afua Badua, a baker, said even though the clay ovens produce bread that could take days before it spoils and has an aroma, one of their disadvantages was pollution and other stress related to preparing the oven.
Ms Badua said, “You can’t even sleep; you put the firewood in bundles depending on the quantity of bread to be baked; for instance, when baking about four bags of flour, you will need about two and a half bundles of the firewood, which must burn till it turns to charcoal and then ashes; sweep it out and use the absorbed heat to bake the bread. As we are waiting for it to burn, people in the house can’t sleep.”
She indicated that the old system of baking drained the baker of energy and time, adding that apart from the delicious taste the clay oven gives to the bread, it had a lot of disadvantages, as it took space and time, polluted the environment, and could lead to deforestation because of the firewood usage.
She, however, stated that its advantage was that it was natural and that after baking, the heat in the oven could be used for boiling water, smoking fish, heating food, and other things, unlike aluminium ones.
Ms Badua also called for some research into the possible side effects of the aluminium oven-baked bread on consumers and the modification of the clay oven so that one could easily choose the one they wanted without health and environmental implications.
Ms Anastasia Ansah, a baker at Kpone, said because the traditional oven was made of bricks and clay, it is good for the health of consumers, noting that the chemicals from the aluminium oven might be very harmful to human health.
Ms Ansah noted that every bread baked in the traditional oven had a specific flavour, and the bread could last up to a week without becoming mouldy, whereas the modern oven bread develops mould faster.
She described the process of baking in the traditional oven as easy, adding that after placing the bread in the oven, one must wait for 30 minutes before opening the oven to avoid the bread sinking.
She also added that if the oven becomes cold while baking, a piece of lighted charcoal in a coal pot could be placed inside.
“The traditional oven is the safest type of oven to use because it does not use gas or explosives that cause harm. I urge bakers to normalise the use of the traditional oven because it is safe, health-friendly, and harmless.”
She disclosed that even though the traditional oven was no longer popular in urban areas because of pollution, some communities in Ghana still preferred the traditional oven and used it in their baking.
GNA