[clock_tower]

Look at the woman in the article picture: she's not using a chimney, and she has to squat to cook. German women were cooking standing up (building fires on raised stone platforms), with chimneys to vent away smoke, in the 17th century. (See Fernand Braudel, _The Structures of Everyday Life_.) Draw your own conclusions: pathological loyalty to tradition or lack of imagination; or severe lack of capital and calories; or what?

[panglott]

This comment made me think of the Japanese kamado or the traditional Russian stove, but see this discussion of the Lorena adobe stove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_stove#Lorena_adobe_stove

One problem is that ceramic stoves with a large thermal mass may take a lot more fuel to fire. In colder northern regions with plentiful fuel, the high thermal mass is an advantage because it can help keep the house warm. But in a tropical setting, open indoor fires may be more efficient at quickly heating food, especially when deforestation is a problem.

[clock_tower]

What Braudel discussed was an assembly with an oven underneath, and a raised hearth on top. You didn't have to heat the stove -- just build a fire on the top surface (with a chimney and smoke hood directly above), and cook with that.