We all somehow imagine that the industrial revolution and man’s space exploration have brought us all that we enjoy today in technology and allowed us to create miracles, especially in medicine and communications. But it has also revolutionised our way of life in the kitchen: had it not been for space travel, we would not have Teflon. Then there are our gadgets that we take for granted, mixers, blenders, modern stoves and ovens and very modern utensils to mention but a few. But let’s for one minute look at the ceramics of our forefathers, with their ideas and utensils that have been around for thousands of years and that man today has been able to expand and build upon. Cultures all over our planet have used clay pots to cook with, prior to metals.
Clay pots have different names in different cultures and in some countries they have never gone out of fashion. Modern Greeks were much too ready to embrace stainless steel and throw aside the ceramics and copper pots of their grandparents. Poverty was so prevalent until very recently in our history and with the onslaught of affluence, Greeks threw out the old.
Fortunately with the awakening of the Greek food industry, very modern versions of the ceramic cooking utensil are now being made and the Greek cooks and chefs are embracing all the old ways with gusto. I have a ceramic baking dish that I bought many years ago from a Greek island where there was still passion by some artisans still making traditional pots. This dish makes the best baked lemon and oregano potatoes and a briam to die for. If I could, I would throw away all the expensive heavy stainless steel baking dishes and replace them with ceramics.
On my journey of many years learning about the history and culture of Greek cooking, I found this wonderful historical fact on the pressure cooker, otherwise known as gastra, that I would like to share with my readers. In an ancient graveyard in Axioupoli, Kilkis, in Northern Greece, it was discovered that a cook or chef had taken to his grave a ceramic pressure cooker dating back 2700 years. This was the precursor to what we call a pressure cooker today.
A pressure cooker is nothing but a utensil that cooks with its own steam and ceramic pots to this day are sealed with pastry as a rule e.g. the Moroccan tagine, therefore sealing in the steam and creating pressure.
This prehistoric utensil was known as piravnos. In the process of the Axioupoli archaeological dig, five piravni where unearthed but only one was in good enough condition to reconstruct to its original shape. I have translated the following from a paper by an academic at Thessaloniki University on prehistoric archaeology and the images are the utensil referred to.
“These piravni are large vases made specifically for the use of cooking food. Their structure is very impressive when you take in consideration the height being 0.38 metres, the weight 14 kilos, and it is calculated with the pieces missing it would of weighed 15 kilos and its capacity would have been 20 litres. It is made up of an inner large ceramic vase with a small circular flat base and comes up to the height of the ‘shoulder’ of the vase with two rows of outlets for the steam. The outer layer has four openings on the top part and two openings at the base to air the fire and keep it alive. It also has inner and outer handles to be able to handle it, an amazing piece of technology for its time.”
We do have a lot more information on cooking utensils from the Athens area of classical times and they too are worth examining in a future article.