Matti as Im updating BAC again do you have more details to share?
The weblink is in Finnish and though can translate Im finding it awkward to drill out the details.
Going by the instructions from there for the modern day traditional dish from Lemi:
https://www.maajakotitalousnaiset.fi/reseptit/lemin-sara-etela-karjalastaThe tub is carved from birch or aspen, and is sized to the oven. It's then soaked in salted water for "weeks", which is said to help prevent cracking (reminds me of the salted water treatment given to
kuksa, traditional wooden mug). After this it's treated with sheep tallow.
For the dish itself, salted mutton or lamb (1kg salt for 10kg meat, so were are talking properly salted for preservation) is rinsed in water to remove excess salt. A heat retaining over is fired up. Any cracks on the tub are patched up with combination of water and flour. The meat is placed on the tub and placed in the oven, with few pieces of alder separating the tub from the bottom of the oven (this both protects the tub and imparts taste, alder being traditional smoking wood in Finland, I guess just branches would be closest URW equivalent). It's cooked in the oven for hours (as many as 8), with meat flipped halfway through the cooking and
potatoes turnips added sometime during the latter half of it. Apparently the tub can handle about 40-60 uses, more than I thought.
Note that this is a "dry" dish, even if the meat naturally releases liquid to the bottom of the tub. I suppose we can assume the tub can handle the in-game stew type dishes as those contain minimum water, but no idea how it would hold up with a soup.
@Plotinus I suppose one could take a stance that the iron pot shouldn't even exist in the game, it's a very complicated thing to hammer that kind of thing together from wrought iron. I'm not too sure it would be easier to take care of such pot in real life. Taking that
kuksa as example, it's arguably easier to take care of than modern carbon steel cookware is (wood is somewhat hygienic material naturally, as it tends to absorb moisture from the surface and bacteria don't like being dehydrated).