The exposition of the Adygeysk Museum of Local Lore presents an oven fork — a device consisting of a long wooden handle and a metal fork. It belonged to Faina Semenovna Tadorova from the Tlustenhable village. The oven fork has been kept in the museum since 1996.

Like the fire iron, the hook was made in the village forge. A wedge-shaped plate was split along its length about two-thirds of the way. Then the uncut part was flattened and wrapped, forming a cone-shaped socket for inserting the handle. The halves created by splitting the workpiece were spread apart and bent to form a u-shape, similar to horns. Hence the second name of the oven fork — the “rogach” (horned being).

The diameter of the fork depended on the size of the pots for which it was intended. The fork was made so that the pot sat securely on its horns. The distance between the tips of the horns had to be such that the fork can be freely brought up from below the pot. To prevent the pot from getting scratched, the tips of the horns were bent in opposite directions.

As a rule, only women used the oven fork, since cooking, and indeed everything related to the stove, was a woman’s job. Lunch consisted mainly of meat dishes. Meat, dairy or flour dishes were used for dinner.

The oven fork was used during cooking. After the oven was heated and the food was cooked, the oven fork was put away. There were different ways of storing oven forks. Most often they were hung above the furnace horizontally. They could also be stored in a niche behind the oven. Ones used most often were stored next to the oven, the rest were taken out to the pantry.

The oven fork was used in various rituals. There were many beliefs associated with it, for example, the oven fork could not be placed at the stove fork-side-down. The horn could also serve as a weapon.