Kovács Zsuzsa: Göcsej Village Museum. Exhibition Guide (Zalaegerszeg, 2008)

EXHIBITION GUIDF. The smoky kitchen next to the room is big and comfortable, and along the wall we can see long planks placed onto strong oak tree trunks used as benches. Travellers staying here overnight could sleep on these benches. On the top of the oven there are several huge cooking pots - normally used at weddings - here often used for the many guests. These pots were made by the potters from Őrség, who were masters of their profession, and their potteries were used all over South-Western Trans-Danubia. The fireproof clay in Őrség made this specialization possible. The pots are really practical with very little decoration. The potters' speciality was the kifogatásos-technique, when they thinned the walls of the huge pots so that they can be heated up easily. Cooking Pot for Weddings This exhibited piece here was also made by a potter from Őrség, on its side we can see the comb-like marks of the 'kifogatás' (thinning). The pot has green glaze on its inside and no glaze on the outside. When the museum purchased this pot it was no longer used for cooking only for keeping seeds in. Earlier, as its name shows, it was used at weddings and at pig-killings when many people needed to be served with hot meals. Oven fork Without the 'kurugla' (oven fork) the big cooking pots would have been impossible to move or to shift in and out of the oven. This 'kurugla' was hooked onto the bottom of the pot to maneuver the pot. They were shaped like a half circle, with a kind of head and depending on how big the pot was, the forks came in various sizes. They were stored leaning against the wall in a row beside the oven.