Our Indian kitchens of yore were like museum display cases. They had an array of quaint instruments/gizmos/tools, hand-operated, often fashioned solidly out of brass or iron, that are seldom used any more in this age of automation and AI, where every device has been 'smartened' up (sigh). We introduced you to 10 Old Style Indian Kitchen Utensils. Now for 9 more...
Once upon a time, high ledges/counters belonged to 'English' kitchens. Our rasois all operated at ground level. Do you have an image in your mind of that tableau? Grannies & moms, sitting on their respective little wooden pattas, kneading aata, rolling out papad dough, scraping coconuts, cleaning prawns, creating Diwali mithais. Made from sturdy wood, this low-seating was used for pujas & even serving food.
There are a dozen names (vili/pahsul/polad) for this cutter that once inhabited courtyards, verandas and kitchen floors. When the ladies of the home sat on their pattas, they were often using the rather sharp hasiya to extremely efficiently slice vegetables, mangos, fish, fruit.
Have you seen something as groovy as this? No it's not making pasta. Idiyappam is being pressed out. Called a sevanazhi or an idiyappam maker, they came in brass or wood and pushed out perfect strands of idiyappam that were coiled into little nests, steamed and had with chicken/vegetable ishtew or milk, sugar and grated coconut. What a picturesque process and such a yum end-product!
If you have this brass, teethy implement still lying around the house keep it safe! It eventually may be worth a lot on eBay. A simple yet essential tool, especially in coastal regions, where coconuts are a staple, you might have seen it in the hands of your mom/grandmother. Now many of us get a pre-husked coconut which we grind in a blender or frozen grated coconut.
You wanted toast made from 'double roti' for breakfast. Back in the 1970s in India, did you pull out a toaster? No. Not many had them. You loaded them onto this old-fashioned, wire-mesh rack and roasted the bread till crispy over an open flame. Lightweight, portable, it didn't require electricity and the toast tasted much better :). We would then plaster some extra sweet, pseudo-fruit jam all over the slices.
In the larger kitchens of our chota bungalows, in the moffussil towns where we grew up -- before everyone mass-migrated, like lemmings, to flats -- there was always a pantry or storeroom attached (some called it godaam). A large line of peepas would occupy the pantries. These lockable peepas were big metal or wooden dabbas traditionally used to store grains, aata and pulses. They kept food safe from pests.
This age-old kitchen tool, again made from stone or wood, was used to grind spices, grains the traditional way. The okhli or mortar was the deep bowl and the moosar or pestle was the heavy wood tool, with thickness on both ends, used to crush, grind or pound.
It is a flat, woven basket used for winnowing grains -- essentially, separating husk and unwanted particles from rice, wheat, pulses. Can you remember that gentle swishing awaaz it made as women in villages, in a rhythmic tossing motion, separated the wheat from the chaff? Not only are these old-style kitchen aids disappearing. Certain lulling sounds are vanishing too.
Another noise we may be forgetting -- the sound of the milk cooker's insistent whistle as it announced, shrilly, that the milk was boiling and now at risk of spilling over and you needed to hotfoot it to the kitchen from whatever room you were in and turn off the gas .
Stories our grandmother told us...
10 things to see before they disappear forever