Bavarian Hammersmith Forges Wrought-Iron Pans at a Mill More Than 500 Years Old 

A view of handmade pans by hammersmith Andreas Rohrmoser stand in a hammer forge, in Bad Oberdorf, Germany, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (AP)
A view of handmade pans by hammersmith Andreas Rohrmoser stand in a hammer forge, in Bad Oberdorf, Germany, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (AP)
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Bavarian Hammersmith Forges Wrought-Iron Pans at a Mill More Than 500 Years Old 

A view of handmade pans by hammersmith Andreas Rohrmoser stand in a hammer forge, in Bad Oberdorf, Germany, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (AP)
A view of handmade pans by hammersmith Andreas Rohrmoser stand in a hammer forge, in Bad Oberdorf, Germany, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. (AP)

Andreas Rohrmoser has been forging thousands of wrought-iron pans the old-fashioned way in his centuries-old hammer mill in the Bavarian village of Bad Oberdorf near the Austria border.

The 53-year-old German hammersmith took over the mill from his predecessor two years ago but had been working there for 15 years already.

The red-roofed mill itself, nestled in a valley in the foothills of the Alps, is more than 500 years old, he said in an interview on Monday. It sits on a canal of the Ostrach river that was built centuries ago specifically to power the mill.

The canal’s water power, channeled through a mill wheel, drives a gigantic hammer inside the building punching down on the anvil. There, in his blacksmith shop, Rohrmoser flattens and shapes his famous skillets.

“The secret of my pans is that they don’t have any kind of coating and therefore you can heat them to a much higher temperature than most other industrially made pans,” Rohrmoser said.

Rohrmoser also used to make horseshoes in the past, but the demand for his skillets has been so strong that he only focuses on them now.

His pans come in different sizes and cost from about $50 to $100.

Among the many dishes he recommends making with his skillets are Bavarian Kaiserschmarrn pancakes, steak and home-fried potatoes.

“The strong heat will make the different dishes — like the fried potatoes — so much crunchier and better,” he said.



UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.
UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.
"It's the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context," Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant "provisional enhanced protection" -- the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention -- to the site.
UNESCO had then said it was "already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture" in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.