Old-World ways come to the Altamont Fair with a brick beehive
oven that will bake fresh bread and instill a sense of community



ALTAMONT — Bread is the staff of life.

Many Americans buy it, packaged in plastic and filled with preservatives to last for a long time.

But in some Italian villages, to this day, the masonry oven for baking bread is as central to community life as, say, our public water systems. Fresh-baked bread is considered essential, and the outdoor oven serves the entire community.

The traditional direct-fire masonry oven dates in Western culture to at least the Roman Republic. Such ovens were used throughout Europe in medieval times and were often made to serve entire communities. They became popular in the Americas during Colonial times.

It wasn’t so long ago that Italians in Voorheesville carried on the tradition with their own masonry ovens.

Michael Ulion is quoted in a book written by Dennis Sullivan, the village historian, on the history of Voorheesville. Ulion reminisced on a now-largely bygone way of life:
"On Sundays we’d go to church in the morning and get together in the afternoon. We’d say we’ll come over today and we’d get together. We’d eat and have card games, ball games, we’d have a hell of a time, play cards for drinks.
"We all had chickens in the backyard. If someone came over from Green Island, my mother would knock the heads off a few and feed sometimes 25 people. We had maybe 500 or 600 cans of fruits and vegetables in the cellar.
"When I came home from the war, my mother would bake over 200 loaves of bread a week in the oven outside and pizza too. She’d sell the bread for 30 cents and a large slice of pizza for 50 cents. That’s the truth. It is."
"It’s got a home"

The one remaining outdoor Italian bread oven in Voorheesville will become a permanent exhibit at the Altamont Fair. It was one of many built in the village during the early 1900’s.

Kim Wilson and her husband, Thomas, of Wilson Bros. Heating and Cooling, who live in Slingerlands, donated the masonry oven.

They bought property at 14 Grove Street in Voorheesville, said Mrs. Wilson, because of the detached garage, which they wanted to use for the business.
"We had plans to take the building down for a bigger one," she said. They knew about the oven, in a structure attached to the garage, and, said Mrs. Wilson, "Tom and I discussed it and decided we were not going to destroy this; it’s a piece of history."

She said values for the oven’s worth ranged from $500 to $2,000 but she sounded pleased to be giving it away.
"It’s got a home," said Mrs. Wilson, explaining it needed to be under a shelter to be protected.

Barn-raising

At a gathering reminiscent of an old-fashioned barn-raising, a slew of volunteers labored in the muggy heat one recent Saturday to construct the new home for what is being called the Tork Family Oven.
The last remaining member of the Tork family who originally owned the oven is Mary Charron; she now lives in Teresian House, said Earl MacIntosh, who is helping with the project. "Her father commissioned it from an itinerant mason," he said.

Mike Jarus, a member of the New Scotland Historical Association who is also involved with Voorheesville’s Boy Scout Troop 73, had baked bread in the oven and asked the association for help in saving it.

MacIntosh, active with the Altamont Fair, saw a notice in the association’s bulletin and thought the oven would be a perfect fit for the fair.

He envisions bread being baked there during fair week each year.
"As you come in Gate 3, you’ll be able to smell the bread," he said. "You’ll follow that smell and be able to see them baking it."

Fair-goers — if not this year, then next year — would be able to sample something rare today: fresh-from-the-brick-oven bread, still so warm that it melts butter.

The brick oven is enclosed in a rustic shed, built in front of the fair’s historic Dutch barn.
"My primary goal was that it fit the landscape in front of the Dutch barn, so it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb," said MacIntosh. "It is made of rough-cut boards and has the same pitch of the roof."
"Really cool idea"

In the course of a single day — albeit a very long one — the bulk of the work to shelter the oven was completed.
It rained at the end of the hot day. "That didn’t stop them," said Bob Mudge. "They were up there, working on the roof in the rain."

The work was overseen by 17-year-old Colin Masterson, as his Eagle Scout project.
"They need to come up with a community project that shows their supervisory and planning skills, said Colin’s father, Lee Masterson, who helped with the project.

Scouting is such an intrinsic part of Colin’s life that, when asked how long he’d been a Scout, he had to stop to consider before replying he had started in the first grade.
"I love it," he said. "It’s fun."

A student at Clayton A. Bouton High School, he works summers, including this one, at the Rotary Boy Scout camp.
What inspired him to work on the beehive-oven project" "Speaking with Dr. Jarus," Colin replied. "It’s a really cool idea."

Colin and his father had arrived at the fairgrounds at 5:30 a.m., he said, to start work on the project.
While several groups were interested in the oven — calls were fielded from the Heldeberg Workshop and the Schoolcraft House — Colin said, "The Altamont Fair will allow the most number of people to see it."

The pole-barn type of structure is based, Colin said, on the pavilions he has helped build at Boy Scout camp.

Many hands
Moving the masonry oven was tricky, said Lee Masterson. "The mortar is crumbling," and will be re-plastered, he said.

A variety of volunteers have come together to work on the project.
"A lot of credit goes to J. J. Cramer," said Masterson, praising a local builder.

Cramer contributed the manpower to dig the holes for the shed posts, and poured the concrete, said MacIntosh.

Greg’s Towing Service moved the oven after it was cut out of the back of the Wilsons’ garage.

Susan Stewart, an architect, did the drawings of the 12-by-12-foot shed.

Chet Boehlke, who owns a lumber mill in Voorheesville, cut and donated all the wood.

Paul Harrigan, a landscaper who owns Harrigan’s Professional Lawn Service, brought the wood to the fairgrounds.

Masons Joe O’Brien and Chuck McGrail said they would use the original brick to rebuild the piers that the oven stands on.
"It’s not as uniform," McGrail said of the original brick. "It’s an old look."

Old World connection
Annie Brill, whose grandmother used to use one of the Voorheesville beehive ovens, will help with the baking, said MacIntosh. "She agreed to help me develop a draft narrative for the docents," he said.
"The dialogue I’d like to tell is, this is an Italian bread oven but not unlike the ovens used in early America for baking many things," said MacIntosh.

Brill remembers, as a child, watching her grandmother, Rose Ricci, bake in the oven behind Ricci’s Market in Voorheesville.
"When you’re a child, you don’t really understand how special something like that is," she said. "It’s just part of your life."
Rose Ricci had grown up in Italy. "The family went back and forth from here to Italy," said Brill. "It took a while to get the whole family here. Their goal was to be part of the American dream."
She went on, "Like a lot of Italians, they worked on the railroad. It was the railroad that brought them to Voorheesville."

Brill’s great-grandfather had been a section foreman for the D&H, she said.

The Riccis’ oven, torn down about 15 years ago, was one of the largest in Voorheeseville, said Brill, because, unlike the Torks’ which was used just for family baking, the Riccis sold much of the bread they baked in their grocery store.

Brill’s grandmother baked not only bread in the oven, but also pizza and, on Sunday, chicken for the family.
"I watched her doing it," said Brill. "It’s not complicated."
She went on to describe the process. "In the morning, my grandmother would load it with a wood fire. It would get really, really hot," she said. "Once the stone got to a certain temperature, she would clear out the inside and mop it to get the ashes up. There was a steel door in front and she’d bank it with coals. She’d do it as if it were nothing."
And how did the food taste" "It was delicious," said Brill. "It gives the food a different texture. The oven itself enhances the flavor; it has that wood-cooked taste."
She concluded, "It’s neat Voorheesville has this connection with the Old World. The hope is to share it with people."

Mrs. Wilson described how Brill had gotten involved in the Altamont Fair project. Both of the women were on a trip to historic Sturbridge Village when the beehive oven came up in the conversation.

As Mrs. Wilson surveyed the workers building the oven’s new home, she shook her head in wonder at the coincidence of that conversation.
"There’s someone up there," she said, pointing skyward, "that wants this taken care of."