This new edition of Cooking in Clay contains new entrees, side dishes, and soups to make in your clay cooker, with updated instructions and tips for getting the most from your cooker. The clay cooker is unusually versatile: It can serve as a vegetable steamer, soup kettle, stew pot, brick oven and roaster. This is because clay is a porous material which, when saturated with water and heated in an oven, provides slow evaporation of steam from its pores, creating a moist, enclosed environment for tender, healthy foods.