Lucky dip - the pestle and mortar (or mortar and pestle)
"the smell of garlic and basil fills the entire house when the ingredients are crushed with a pestle and mortar. You should not let the food processor rob you of that pleasure."
Claudia Roden
It's a dull day, it's a fasting day - gloom and doom all-round. So I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I have resorted to a lucky dip. I'm even more ashamed to say that I was at first, as I often am, somewhat uninspired by my pick. Not by the book so much - Claudia Roden's Mediterranean Cookery, but more by the page I chose which was a selection of soups - a Turkish yoghurt soup, Avgolemono, Soupe au pistou and Harira. All of which are actually pretty tempting things to make, and I have made Soupe au pistou many times, but nevertheless it didn't feel like much to write about. And then I saw the words above which were in the introduction to that particular soup and I suddenly changed my focus from the food to the equipment.
Now I do have a pestle and mortar, or a mortar and pestle (I'm never sure which way round the phrase goes) - I think it was a present from somebody, but then again maybe not. It's pretty, and I'm fairly sure it's this one. Anyway although it is solid and heavy, I think it is very probably too small. I have not used it a lot, but if I bash things they jump out of the bowl and if I grind them they start to migrate over the top. And it's hard work to get things to crush. I think maybe the pestle is not heavy enough. So whenever I read about how one should always use one and not a food processor I tell myself these are just food snobs talking. That really it's better to just throw it all in the food processor. And mostly this works, though I have to say that when you are working with small quantities the food processor is useless. So I bought a mini processor which was good, lost a vital bit of it and now that doesn't work.
The pestle and mortar is ancient. 35,000 BC is one date that I saw. Man has basically been crushing things with stones in some kind of hollow or bowl since virtually as long as homo sapiens (and his predecessors) have existed. Even apes do it.
These are two examples - I'm not sure where from, but really you could say that the design has not changed a great deal over those thousands of years. Mine is prettier and more refined but the basic shape and concept is the same. And it's not just cooks that have used them. Pharmacists, and their predecessors, the apothecaries are the most prominent of these, and I believe that even today some pharmacists may still use them occasionally to grind their medicaments. Their use was so ubiquitous that the shop signs often did and sometimes still do, use the image of a pestle and mortar to advertise their business.
"The mortar and pestle offer a rare example of a stable technology, surviving thousands of years without significant refinement." Kate Angus - The Atlantic
Builders and other tradesmen have also used them to grind and mix stones and mortar (the very name of the tool itself), and artists to mix their paints. Anyone, in fact who needed to squash and crush things and mix them together. And what is a millstone other than a gigantic mortar and pestle? They are used world wide and even though the size may vary and the shape also - tall and narrow or short and squat - in Africa they have long poles that they pound into bins to make flour and other things - the basic design and concept is really the same.
Virtually all chefs of any note swear by them, with some of them stating that they are their most necessary bit of equipment. Nigel Slater takes his with him when he is filming or going anywhere that he is going to cook. So why?
"Although so much of the work of pounding, grinding, and sieving is now done by the electric mixer, a pestle and mortar still seems to me to be a kitchen necessity." Elizabeth David
Perhaps Elizabeth David is a poor choice - she is 'old' hat nowadays. But she is not alone. And there are actual scientific reasons why they are better - as well as the already mentioned one of being better for small quantities.
"A food processor shears and shreds the ingredients, tearing apart and breaking down vegetables, but not necessarily rupturing all of their cells to release aromatic compounds. A mortar and pestle, on the other hand, does a great job of actually crushing individual cells, producing a curry paste with much better flavor. On the other hand, it's much easier to get a smooth texture with a food processor." J. Kenji López-Alt - Serious Eats
This particular cook found in the end that if one wanted to speed up the process the next best results to just the pestle and mortar were to begin with the pestle and mortar and finish off in the food processor. Not the other way around.
Then there are all those other more emotional arguments, that, to be frank, I am a little suspicious of on my cynical days. Because it's hard work. I bash and grind away and nothing much seems to happen. Here's a picture of Jamie Oliver - a great fan of the pestle and mortar working away at it and it does look like a lot of effort.
Indeed he actually brought out a gadget - for achieving the same effect for small quantities, that I bought. It was supposed to be easier. The top screws off. You put your peppercorns or whatever inside - there is a hard ceramic ball in there - screw on the top and shake like mad. Just as hard work, and not all that effective. Well I didn't think so anyway.
On my soulful days I think the sentimental comments are wonderful. Here are a couple of them.
"by applying muscle to transform ingredients into paste or powder, the mortar and pestle help the cook form a bond with his or her food. These two tools on the shelf, inseparable partners, promise work, intimacy, and an elegant testament to the staying power of simple things." Kate Angus - The Atlantic
"You can gauge the texture of the paste you are grinding much more easily than in a food processor, plus you get to breathe in the fragrance of every spice, seed, herb and nut you crush. A gentle and delightful reminder that the real pleasure of cooking is about the process not just the end result." Nigel Slater
"The point is to see cooking not just as something to get through, so that you can put your feet up and relax when you're done. It's about actually relaxing and enjoying the process of cooking itself. Using a mortar and pestle for me is the equivalent of doing yoga or going to a spa," Adam Roberts - The Salt
Well - it's not relaxing. Though I guess you could get rid of a lot of anger and frustration. But reading things like this make me want to go out and buy a better one. Maybe I'll wait until Aldi have one again, or I think K-Mart has a pretty good one. I gather that a stone one that is good and heavy, fairly tall, and not too smooth and not too rough is the best to go for, though Elizabeth David went for wood. Not heavy enough I would have thought. The one in this picture by Cole & Mason was judged by one site to be the best.
"a mortar and pestle is the sign of an engaged cook." Nancy Silverton
So I fail yet again. I have to say that overall the pestle and mortar thing is one of the things that does make me feel that I am not a 'real' cook. I am too lazy, too impatient and not dedicated enough.
But before I leave this post, just a word about the book that I picked at random from my shelf. Claudia Roden - one of my favourite cooks, and this is perhaps her most approachable book after Picnic, which is my all-time favourite.
I believe it has been revised since my version - shown at right, but I would recommend it. It has food from a real cross-section of Mediterranean countries - so you have Middle-Eastern and North African food as well as the more normal, French, Italian, Spanish and Greek. All the classics are there and some other things too. Nothing is too hard and it is not as 'academic' as some of her other books. I'm sure the revised edition has better pictures - not that they are bad in my one, but somehow or other the presentation looks old-fashioned. And there aren't pictures of everything - just some. Since we are supposed to be eating a Mediterranean diet you could do worse than using this book as the basis for it.
