Pots cast in Dundee and sold off the yard floor

Poured in green sand, three at a time

Every pot in this yard starts as a pattern pressed into green sand, two halves clamped shut, and about forty kilos of scrap iron melted down and poured in one go. When it has cooled we knock the sand off, cut the runner away, grind the seam back by hand and check the lid on the pot it was cast with. Lids and pots are married here and never mixed, which is why ours seat instead of rattle. Then it goes into the oven with sunflower oil and comes out black, and that is the seasoning — it means your first fire can be a cooking fire instead of a burning-in fire. The three legs are not decoration either. A potjie is meant to stand in the coals with heat coming at it from underneath and from all sides, not balanced on a grid above the fire. Rake the coals up around it, keep the lid on, and then leave it alone.