Adobe Oven in New Mexico Postcard

This adobe oven, also called horno, is a mud adobe-built outdoor oven used by Native Americans and early settlers of North America. Originally introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors, it was quickly adopted and carried to all Spanish-occupied lands. The horno has a beehive shape and uses wood as the heat source. Food is still cooked in a horno in parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Since the horno is made of adobe, it wicks the moisture into the food in a natural convection. Horno is the usual Spanish word for "oven" or "furnace,"and derives from the Latin word furnus. This kind of oven was very common in Central Europe, especially in Hungary, and in these days is becoming trendy once again. The Hungarian name for the horno is kemence. In parts of rural South and Central America, this oven is called horno de barro, literally "mud oven".