The Art of Pottery holds significance to our lives even though we really don’t pay much attention to
them apart from that time of the year when we do go out to buy kitchen utensils. Call it a void of
knowledge or plain supermarket marketing strategies no one really fathoms the science behind the
materials used for utensil manufacturing. I Believe for something that we use thrice in a single day
deserve more attention and thought that it typically gets these days.
You Are What You Eat
I cannot imagine a more basic or primeval activity for a human then eating. The Whole world
revolves around it in one way or another. It’s a fundamental resource of unprecedented significance.
It’s Fuel and nourishment for the body but also is a world of never ending flavours and tastes which
connects us to food emotionally. How that food is cooked and served is a major part of the whole
process of course it serves a aesthetic value to the food but it goes way deeper then how the food
looks like served on a plate. A little known fact about cooking and serving utensils is that it also
endows the food with its nutritional and taste qualities.
The Pursuit of Nutritional Wellbeing
Health Nutrition fitness are some run of the mill words that are thrown around these days on a
regular. Never ever in in the recent history have people been more concerned and invested into
their physical health then they are today. The influence of social media plus the perils of the modern
lifestyle clearly has fuelled the interest in fitness and nutrition as we know it. The Fitness industry is worth billions today with the growth graph going nowhere but up. As much as Food and its nutrition value has been put into much scrutiny ironically enough the manner in which its cooked and served has slipped through the radar of the so called institutions of the nutrition industry.
Our Conveniences and the Consequences
Convenience as a term has a element to irony attached to it. Just like the convenience of fast food
doesn’t translate to healthy and wholesome food the modern day fast cooking convenient utensils
misses out on critical aspects of nutrition that any health conscious individual will want in his food.
Our Obsession with convenience has breached into our basics principles of health and nutrition. The simple process of adding nutritional value to our food throughout the cooking and serving process has taken a clear hit. To start with the additions of harmful chemicals and dangerous metals have slipped into our everyday cookware completely unnoticed. Teflon coated non stick cookware; aluminium pans, ceramic coated pots have profound health consequences but are the most commonly used cooking solutions due to the immediate convenience they offer and the easy
availability. The extent of the damage that these materials are capable of doing goes far beyond
something that you might imagine at first. From Teflon induced respiratory issues to cancer caused
by the non stick coating on the cooking pans there is no getting away from the grave reality of the so called modern conveniences that we have accustomed to.
A Forgotten Relic with Immense Benefits – Earthen Cookware
As much as we are surrounded by injurious cookware the solution surprisingly doesn’t lie far from
us. A much simpler and infinitely healthier cooking solution lies in the forgotten Ayurvedic technique of earthen pottery cookware. The Making and usage of earthen utensils have been well documented in history and has been in use since 400 BC. It’s not just a single country or civilisation affair as the
usage of such pottery can be traced from Egypt to India and many other civilisations from the past.
The modern developed society might see earthen pottery utensils as a relic from the past that looks
unfinished and rough on the outside plus is easily breakable on the slightest of impacts. All those
shortcomings might be true but our ancestors knew a thing or two about the virtues of using such
utensils for cooking and serving. The proof is in the pudding as the very material that such utensils
are made from is earthen clay which itself is a nutrient dense carrier of calcium, phosphorous, iron,
magnesium, sulphur just to name a few. No other cookware doesn’t even come close to possessing
such enriching mix of nutrients that are major contributors to the overall health of the human body.
Earthen cookware infuses these nutrients to the food that is cooked in it. Plus clay is also alkaline
and thus, acts neutralized the acidity in the food, which makes it easier for us to digest.
Cooking with the Elements
The ancient Ayurvedic texts on healthy cooking further expands the idea of using earthen cookware
and the way it induces the food with healthy nutrition and life force energy. The Ayurvedic principles goes way beyond then just the nutrients in earthen clay that is added to the food while cooking. Ayurvedic fundamentals also take into account the elements of nature into cooking that play a part in the whole cooking process. For the food to be enriched with life force energy according to the texts require Fire [heat], Light and Air is required to into come into the food. The interaction with the elements is believed to render amazing qualities and life force energy to the food which is essential to a healthy energetic human body. Modern cooking equipments like aluminium pressure cookers devoid the atmospheric light and air to come into the food thus leaving the food incomplete in its contact with the elements. Earthen cookware by design only accommodates open lid cooking letting in the natural elements to come into the food and allowing the amazing qualities of the elements to be immersed into the food.
What we all crave-The Pleasures of Taste
Apart from adding such valuable nutrients to the food cooked earthen pottery pans also have the
ability to add something else to the food something that we all crave and love so much that is the
taste. Heat dissipation plays a major role in the process of cooking and it varies according to the
material that is used to make the cookware. The modern cookware like pressure cookers might be
faster cooking but earthen pots exert a different form of heat to the food that is gradual in nature
different to the fast cook technique used these days. The slow cook gradual heat process delivers a
deeper and intense taste profile compared to the modern cookware solutions like pressure cooker.
The so called relic from the past is still present in places that we consider delivers the epitome of
taste and gastronomic excellence. The fine dining Michelin star restaurants too have taken notice of
such cooking techniques and have included them in their cooking. Its well knows fact that the best
five star restaurants in India like to use earthen cookware for enhancement in the taste profile of
their dishes. Well if the experts are using it for a richer taste and experience it must be working well.
A Trade off worth Making
As they say you are what you eat, there is no getting away from the fact that our life’s will be
determined by how much energy we have and how healthy we are. Food plays such a profoundly
important role in our lives that our quality of life depends on it. Parting ways with the quality of food
in the name of convenience is a compromise that’s not worth making. Convenience what is it good
for if it takes away more from our lives then it gives. The Benefits of earthen cookware bestowed
upon the quality of the food we cook are just too good to say no to. Sure it might not be as
aesthetically pleasing or durable as modern cookware but it’s a small trade off in comparison to
what you gain in terms of the nutritional and taste quality you gain from earthen cookware. The
times we live in have challenged our health and wellbeing on a daily biases. Any additions that make a positive difference to our daily wellbeing should be grabbed by both hands. This old relic from the past that we have forgotten still has so much to deliver to our wellbeing in the modern times.
