VOURNA AND XESTROS

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Due to its relation to a very basic cooking process, namely the making of bread, the wooden bread trough was one of the most necessary and common utensils of the Cypriot kitchen. The big size trough was known as vourna, while the smaller one was called vournin. Both types had the same rectangular shape, a rounded base and outwards inclining side walls.

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Craftsmen from the mountain village of Moutoullas specialized in making vournes. They used pine trunks, cut in pieces that matched the length of the trough. Each trunk piece was split in two and carved on the inside to the shape of the trough using a specific tool, named koudoutzin. Small curves, stretching in relief across the exterior surface of the short sides of the trough, served both for decoration and for providing an easier grip.

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In some households, there were two troughs of different size. In the smaller vournin they used to make small quantities of dough or they prepared the sour-dough, leaving it there overnight to ferment. On the next day, they kneaded the dough in their bigger, clean vourna. When bread making was almost finished, they scratched the dough remnants off the trough’s inside walls, using the strefa or xestros. The latter was a small metal spatula with a thin handle ending in a flat, bell-shaped surface with a straight edge.

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Besides being a cooking utensil, due to its shape and form the vourna was also used as a baby crib.