Strength in the kitchen or choose a mortar
To understand what kind of mortar we need in the household, we first find out what its purpose is, what kind of work it does in our och. skillful gentle hands? A lot depends on the answer to this question. The fact is that the task of turning something-would-not-be into dust involves two jobs - crush and grind. Which are fundamentally different in terms of the application of brute force. In the first case, the vertical force is shock, in the second, the horizontal force is the friction force. But this is not all the possibilities of the mortar, because you can crush and rub substances both sufficiently dry and containing different amounts of aggressive and not very liquids, getting either a powder or a paste at the exit. And it is from this that the difference in material, shape, dimensions of the mortar and pestle follows.
Obviously, the properties of the material should meet these tasks - not to fall apart from impact, not to deteriorate from moisture and not to flavor the products processed in them with their own dust. Hence the properties of materials with a plus sign:
- hardness, that is, the ability to withstand external pressure, abrasion resistance is also associated with this
- plasticity - the ability to deform without rupture and destruction,
- density, that is, the internal structure of the material, with which impact resistance is directly related
- chemical resistance
There are no pluses without minuses, which are the continuation of the merits:
- softness
- fragility
- porosity, i.e. the ability to absorb moisture, food colors and odors
- chemical activity
We will dance from this stove. And first we will consider in which mortars it is more convenient to grind.
Let's start, so to speak, by seniority. The first in our use were stone mortars. Pieces of rock - granite and basalt - were scattered here and there around the cave, you just had to choose the right ones. Only flat stones did not yet know that they were mortars, and rounded stones did not yet know that they were a pestle.A rounded pestle rolled like an apple on a saucer, rubbing and mixing everything that came to hand - grains, seeds, roots, vegetables, nuts, fruits. Over time, on flat stones the middle deepened slightly and the edges rose, and the pestle turned into a kind of rolling pin, or even bent into the shape of the letter "g". Similar archaic mortars are still preserved, for example, in India (pata varvanta), Indonesia (cobek and ulek-ulek), Mexico (metate and metlapil), for grinding vegetables and spices, grains, rice, corn, cocoa beans and cooking vegetables pastes such as guacamole, sambal or masal and curry pastes.
And although mortars over time acquired a more civilized form - and became such as molcajete and tejolote in Mexico or krok hin in Thailand, both basalt and granite have retained their importance to this day. The hardness, density and abrasion resistance of these materials are the highest among natural stones. The disadvantages of basalt include poor polishability, so the spices and pastes obtained in such mortars have a non-uniform, rough structure.
But polished granite and mortars from other natural stones, once called gemstones, do an excellent job with this: jasper and chalcedony - agate, onyx, carnelian. All these stones are perfectly polished, have excellent hardness and density, and as a result, it is quite easy to get fine powders from spices and smooth pastes in them. The undoubted advantages of all stone mortars include the fact that they do not absorb water, do not react with acidic fruit juice, or with dyes of paprika or turmeric.
With one sad exception - marble does not withstand the given conditions. Its hardness is two times lower than other stones, it absorbs moisture quite well and reacts perfectly even with weak acids - citric and acetic. Unfortunately, most of the mortars on sale are marble. And the price, alas, is the same, the same as that of a granite mortar. Do we need it? What if you already have a marble mortar? Do not throw it away. If you gently grind only dry spices in it and prepare non-aggressive pastes, for example from baked garlic or oil-based onions, it will serve as well as others.
Another ancient natural material for mortars is wood. It is clear that in such a forest side as ours, wooden stupas were in great circulation, but only they did not grind, but rather pounded oatmeal into oatmeal, hemp and flaxseed to obtain oil, but more on that later. Large wooden stupas are still used in Japan (usu and kine) to make rice flour and starch from glutinous rice.
Of the obvious advantages, the tree does not react to acids and alkalis. But it perfectly absorbs odors and food colors, and most importantly - moisture, so sooner or later even the hardest wooden mortar will crack.
In general, the ratio of the pros and cons of a wooden mortar, like no other material, depends on the nobility of the breed, and it serves rather as a gift option than is really necessary on the farm. That is, say, an ebony mortar decorated with intricate carvings, donated by a beloved mother-in-law / mother-in-law, or an Indonesian version of a traditional palm tree mortar brought as a gift by a colleague / boss is unlikely to leave anyone indifferent.
The most untwisted olive mortars have a fairly high hardness and strength and allow you to grind some dry spices in them - mainly seeds and leaves, as well as fresh grass, fruits, vegetables and nuts. Since olive mortars are often offered in a matching gift set with olive oil and olives, it is logical that olive tapenade paste is the best use for such a gift.
But we cannot wait for favors from nature, and in China they invented porcelain, which has no less hardness, strength, moisture and chemical resistance than natural stone. And a short time after the appearance of porcelain in Europe, pharmacists adopted it, and since then, doctors and chemists have used exclusively porcelain "sets".Porcelain mortar and pestle (suribachi and surikogi) allow the Japanese, for example, to get the finest rice powder or homogeneous soy miso pastes, grind sesame seeds for goma-dzio or Japanese pepper leaves and seeds for seasoning - kinome.
The main disadvantage of porcelain - fragility - is overcome quite easily, due to the thickness of the wall, well, and careful handling of it - to hammer nutmeg or even just black and allspice in such a contraption, to put it mildly, is inconvenient and impractical.
So, let's summarize: Grinding any products is more convenient and easier to carry out in a circular motion, therefore, the optimal mortar intended for grinding should have a hemispherical inner surface and an outer surface of a massive pestle close to a hemisphere. And this surface must be chemically resistant and mechanically strong.
But what about nutmeg, dry ginger roots, cassia pieces, poppy seeds, finally? For this, another type of mortar is intended - in the form of a glass. But more on that later ...
