Ivor and Olive Lewis on thu 15 jul 04
Dear Martin,
We use a terra cotta cooking pot I made which is unglazed. Nor does it
have a Terra Sigillata wash.
It's been in use for a couple of years now and so far there seems to
be no wear or degradation of the clay. But it does have a draw back
which is more of a cosmetic issue.
Because it is porous, a feature essential to this mode of cooking,
liquid food residues especially fats, soak into the fabric of the pot.
Repeated heating causes this residue to slowly decompose giving a dark
discolouration on the surface. Because we do not wish to taint our
food with soap, we never use detergents of any kind to clean either
the interior or exterior or the lid. Both pot and lid are scoured and
washed with clean hot water then oven dried. If this cooking pot is
stored perfectly dry, in a dry place, bacterial or fungal growth seems
not to happen.
In use, pots of this type (container and lid) are soaked in cold water
until saturated. Food is then placed in them and the lid is placed on
the pot. The laden pot is put in a cold oven and heated slowly over
about 30 minutes with the gas set to 200 Celsius. Then heat imput is
reduced to the least possible that the oven will sustain for about two
hours by which time Shin Beef is fully tenderised.
Putting such a pot into a heated oven would lead to a catastrophe and
I would expect the sudden generation of steam in a microwave to cause
disintegration of a water laden porous pot. So I would never do this.
Since the clay is porous and there are some pretty savage, aggressive
scented detergents used in automatic dishwashers I would elect to wash
by hand rather than risk tainting our utensil and spoiling future
meals.
I have eight of these little beauty cookers waiting to be fired at the
moment.
Perhaps this information might prompt penetrating questions you could
ask if you are going to buy from the maker you mention.
Just as a matter of interest, we (Olive and me) believe this mode of
cooking enable us to utilise foods which give us the primary building
blocks for our bodies to carry out their tasks of self repair of
skeletal injury and degradation, Aka arthritis. Modern Commerce and
those people who insist that food be "perfectly presented at the point
of sale" uses preparation method which eliminate these useful foods,
Aka gristle, sinew and cartilage from the modern diet.
I hope this information is useful.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
S. Australia.
.
Malcolm Schosha on thu 15 jul 04
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, Ivor and Olive Lewis
wrote:
> >
> Modern Commerce and
> those people who insist that food be "perfectly presented at the
point
> of sale" uses preparation method which eliminate these useful foods,
> Aka gristle, sinew and cartilage from the modern diet.
> I hope this information is useful.
> Best regards,
> Ivor Lewis.
> Redhill,
> S. Australia.
>
................
Hmm...
How about the fur and feathers too? Good for roughage.
Malcolm Schosha
Ivor and Olive Lewis on fri 16 jul 04
Now then Malcolm,
Fair do's fella.
You talkin' about Chicken Snags and Cowheel Pie?
<<> How about the fur and feathers too? Good for roughage.>>
Best regards,
Ivor.
Malcolm Schosha on fri 16 jul 04
--- In clayart@yahoogroups.com, Ivor and Olive Lewis
wrote:
> Now then Malcolm,
> Fair do's fella.
> You talkin' about Chicken Snags and Cowheel Pie?
> <<> How about the fur and feathers too? Good for roughage.>>
> Best regards,
> Ivor.
>
>
..................
Ivor,
Actually, I was just reading what you said, about eating the more of
the complete animal, from the point of view of having not eaten any
meat for about 34 years. But this could get rather far removed from
the pottery issues of the question.
As you know, I agree that lowfire pottery can be good for cooking.
But I don't think I would recommend many studio potters making
cookware for sale, although some may do it successfully.
Aside from issues with control of glaze quality, and liability; there
is the economics of it. Cookware is made by many large factories
using computerized jiggering equipment (which can form a pot in
seconds, not minutes), and fired in continuous firing tunnel kilns.
And in cookware unique handcrafted qualities may be secondary, to the
public's desire for a uniform and reliable product. Why should
potters take on the ceramic cookware industry when there are other
things that give good opportunity to emphasize the uniqueness of
handmade pottery? This is a problem for those who make highfire, as
well as lowfire pottery.
Malcolm Schosha
Ivor and Olive Lewis on sat 17 jul 04
Dear Malcolm,
Agreed, you have to be very careful.
I know what you mean about industrial production of cooking ware.
Worked in the Pyrex factory of James A. Jobling at Sunderland back in
1969 for a short period of time. Like working in Dant=E9's inferno with
the heat, the noise and the smells.
But I think there is a place for custom made cooking pots. This would
be when you wish to follow a particular ethnic or national style of
cooking where there is not a large enough market for
capitalist/industrial manufacture to supply the cooking utensils. To
compensate, by exploiting the deficiency in the market place,
importers step into the picture. At which point questions might be
raised about the integrity of the offshore product.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
S. Australia.
.
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