12 october 2022

Pots and other herbs

by Agus

For some reason, I have always found “clay pots”, as these pottery productions are usually called, fascinating; they are beautiful, useful, and diverse, and anyone who has any experience with them will say that food is tastier when cooked in a clay pot.

Nowadays, these pots and the rest of the culinary equipment are being replaced by aluminium pots and plastic containers. This replacement means that fewer people are involved in pottery production. Therefore, the knowledge needed to make a good pot is being lost, and soon only archaeological and historical vessels will be left to learn about the technological traditions that developed throughout history.

But, what is a pot?

Talking about a pot seems something clear and at the same time, quite diffuse…

If you ask anyone what an earthenware pot is, they will probably describe a vessel made of baked clay. Quite simple and clear, or is it?

Both in the archaeological record and today’s culinary equipment, the forms of “pots” are many and varied, and each one of them serves a particular practice within culinary preparations - we will deal with all those ceramic elements that are not related to cooking at another time. And this is what happens in our kitchens today, with so many pots of different sizes, shapes and materials, each with its own specific function.

The “pot” ¹ is thus only one element of what we could call the culinary equipment, i.e. the minimum equipment we should have in a kitchen to be able to prepare our favourite recipes, with the culinary techniques we learn.

The pot itself is a central piece of kitchen equipment. Its main function is to be placed over the fire to boil water and food. As this is its main function, it needs to have certain physical characteristics. These characteristics seek to maximise its thermal efficiency. That is to say that a pot must resist the heat well, without breaking when it is put on the fire or when it cools down; and also allow the food to cook quickly.

How do we make a pot useful?

The first step for having a good pot is the raw material to be used. Mainly clay, of course, with the right plasticity, that is to say, that it does not have too much sand or other elements in its composition and that in general, it is easy to work with. “Non-plastic elements “, i.e. sand or rock fragments, must be added to this clay to provide sufficient strength to the wall of the pot - where I come from these non-plastic elements are called pirka and it is not easy to find pirka of the best quality. The presence of antiplastics in the paste gives a “skeleton” to the pot; that is to say, it balances the paste so that its consistency is suitable for modelling, and it also reduces the expansion of the fabric, allowing it to resist temperature changes, both when cooked and when fired for later use.

The right fabric for a pot will be more complex than just a bit of clay, and the skills needed to produce it are numerous. Not only which clay is the best, or where to get the best antiplastic, but also in what proportions to mix these elements with water and knead them into a good raw material are some of the things that need to be known.

Now, what shape should a pot have?

A pot should be globular, or at least not have sharp angles, as the globular shape is the most efficient to distribute the heat evenly throughout the preparation and achieve the fastest boiling point. It should also have a short neck and an opening large enough to mix the ingredients but not so large that they spill or the water evaporates. It also needs to have handles so that it can be put on and taken off the heat.

This “ideal” pot can be constructed in different ways and have a variety of shapes. In general, they are vessels that have little or no “decoration”: they are not painted in any particular way or polished (we are thinking about ceramics that are painted with slips, which are essentially coloured clays, and polished by hand, not glazed or enamelled). This is also related to maximising the efficiency of the pot when cooking: its wall is by nature porous, meaning that when we cook the water goes to those empty spaces, no matter how painted or polished it is. Once the water starts to evaporate due to the heat, it will be more difficult for that steam to escape and it will generate detachments from the ceramic wall that will start to damage the pot. And we all need a pot that will last as long as possible. Even so, some cookware has finishes and decorations, mainly on the outside.

The shapes, decorations, and techniques used to create each of the pots have an important root in the traditions and communities of each area. Elements of identity, practices and traditions are generated and are present in the pots, which we have to see as a set of networks, knowledge and identities.

An interesting discussion about the nature of pots and their importance for understanding societies can be found in Skibo, J.; Schiffer, M.; The clay cooking pot. An exploration of women’s technology. In: Exploring Archaeology; 1995; 80-91. ↩