CHENNAI: It’s the time of the year when rural landscapes and city streets host similar sights, the air has a familiar aroma and the sounds are all too close to the heart. Intricate kolams are drawn, and sugarcane, vegetables, fresh turmeric and ginger roots are generously placed on it. Ethnic attires roll out of the wardrobes, children groove to blaring festive music, and the joy of living is at its best.
But it’s the Pongal paanai — either the earthen pot (man paanai), or the bronze pot (vengala paanai) — that’s the real showstopper. A new paanai, with hand drawn symbol so fauspiciousness, filled with milk, is set on the stove. And just as the milk boils and spills out, there’s a chorus that cries out in joy, pongalo pongalo. So, before we head out to pick our pot for this Pongal, we’ll help you choose yours by tracing the cultural ethos of the traditional paanai.
Cooking stories
“Pongal without pots is incomplete. Just like the farmers’ community, it’s celebrated by the close-knit potter (Kuyavar) community as a gesture of thanksgiving to mother nature. I’m talking specifically about south Indian communities. We call the pot as Pongal paanai, as it’s newly purchased for the festival, every year. While earthen pots are purchased annually, the bronze pots are endearingly gifted to the bride for her to cook the first pongal after marriage. It’s the slow-cooking process in both the pots that imparts special flavours. It also allows step-wise monitoring to ensure you get the desired taste,” explains Chitra Viswanathan, a culinary expert.
Metal matters
Once prepared, the pongal can be allowed to age for a whole day in the pot. “Pongal is gheeladen and rich in nuts. As it soaks in the pot, the flavours get enhanced. The porosity and natural insulation properties of clay causes heat and moisture to circulate inside the mud pots. It’s highly recommended for everyday cooking as the mud pots are alkaline in nature and they interact with the acidity of water and maintain the pH balance, thereby curing acidity and gastrointestinal pain.
Bronze pots have a combination of lead and copper, and retain the heat for a longer time. These pots are used for cooking rice, pongal and arisi upma. Eating food made in them provides the body with many essential nutrients. I was told by my family doctor that in Ayurveda, it’s said to neutralise the vata and pita,” details Alamelu Raja, an 80-year-old home chef, who has been using both the pots for cooking regularly for more than 50 years.
To prevent the bottom of the pots from blackening, in the past, both kinds of pots used to be covered with rice-flour paste. After cooking, the paste would be scrubbed off and then the pots washed. “This happens when we cook on a firewood stove. You don’t find much decolourisation while cooking on a regular stove. Those days, we used to wash the pot with ash, soil sourced from the river bed and, sometimes, soapnut. Now, you can gently rinse them with water or any liquid and leave them to dry.
Both the variants are easy to maintain,” suggests Banumathi Balasubramanian, a home chef, from her experience of using pots to cook. While the pots are available all through the year for other festivals too, their demand peaks during the harvest season. “Bronze pots are priced twice as much as the earthen pots. Mud pots are prone to more cracks and can break if not maintained well. Bronze pot is heavy, expensive and a life-long investment.
The quality of an earthen pot is determined by the sound — higher the sound, better the longevity. Mud pots should be rough in texture and not smooth or shiny. Bronze pots are checked for leakage before purchase,” explains Bhanumathi while giving us tips on how to pick the right paanai.
Back to basics
In the age of non-stick cookware and fast food, there’s quite a keen market for bronze pots, says Swaminathan M, a fifthgeneration potter and owner of Sri Swaminathan and Co in Kumbakonam. “Bronze, which was once a necessity, has now become a sophisticated metal and used as a piece of ornament in hotels and homes. Sometimes, I courier, but mostly people drop by from all over the country to purchase it. We make 1,000 pots every year but the number has come down to 700. Nevertheless, the sales have been good and so has the demand.
I export it to other Asian countries, too. The pots are handmade by a community of artisans. In recent years, many younger artisans are coming back to the profession of making bronze pots. Although it takes only half an hour to make a bronze pot, it lasts a lifetime,” he shares. While bronze is making a promising comeback, all is not well with earthen pot, it seems, given the laborious process involved in making it, reveals S Rani, a third-generation potter from Thiruvaiyaru, Thanjavur. “We use earthen pots every day and if maintained well it does not break easily.
People are hesitant to buy them because of their fragile nature. While the demand for terracotta seems to be gaining popularity among people, customers need to know that it is the earthen pot that’s the purer version. Right from selecting the mud, shaping, polishing, drying and baking in the kiln, it takes five days to prepare a batch of mud pots. In a way, it’s heartwarming to see the increasing awareness. I hope more people buy it after understanding its significance,” she says. It is perhaps to bring back the lost glory that K Malar Kodi, a farmer from Uthangarai near Krishnagiri, says that staying true to the roots is the only way forward in passing on the legacy to our next generations.
“Pottery as a profession and craft needs the respect it deserves. It is on the verge of dying in many pockets of not only Tamil Nadu, but other parts of India too, because the newer generation of artisans are migrating to cities and switching over to other professions. Having said that, it’s encouraging to see the younger generation keen in reviving age-old vessels and experimenting with it. Earthen and bronze pots are just two among the many types of pots. Cooking in them shouldn’t be a one-time affair but a life-long practice,” says Malar, leaving us with a hope that prosperity overflows in the life of the potter community as in that of the buyers.