The Horno oven is an important tool of the desert southwest, vernacular to each location in style and material. Traditionally an horno is made of small mud bricks that are made of the earth where the horno was built with the addition of straw from grain harvest. Originally from the Iberian peninsula and adopted by the Spanish from the Moorish people and carried to all Spanish occupied lands, the horno made its way here to New Mexico and surrounding areas. It’s hard to imagine that the indigenous peoples of this area didn’t already cook in mud already, but the method of building and stacking bricks became the common practice. In New Mexico to this day you still see hornos of various qualities scatted through both old Spanish and Pueblo settlements, some still used, some turning back into the soil.