Speaker 1: Um, Welcome back to Point of Origin, the podcast about
Speaker 1: the world of food from around the world. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: wet Stone Magazine co founder Steven Saderfield. Today marks our
Speaker 1: seventh episode to date, can you believe it? And so
Speaker 1: far we've started each episode by getting right into the
Speaker 1: story because these episodes are dense and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ground to cover. But before we do so today
Speaker 1: we have a request. That is, if you're listening to this,
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Speaker 1: now on to today's show. You know, when we think
Speaker 1: about food origins, often we think about the movement of people, plants, animals,
Speaker 1: and ideas, But the study of humans would be an
Speaker 1: incomplete one without the study of clay and ceramic vessels
Speaker 1: one of human kind's earliest and most important inventions. These
Speaker 1: fragments of earth, when listened to attentively, are clues to
Speaker 1: the past. What is the type or quality of material used?
Speaker 1: What was the technology? Was it more like a sculpture
Speaker 1: or formed on a wheel? What can these fragments and
Speaker 1: particles tell us about its uses? If pottery is a
Speaker 1: conversation with past, archaeologists are our interpreters. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: to a whisper of ancient history, culinary archaeologist jerre Lynn Morrison.
Speaker 1: Jery Lynn has a PhD in archaeology specializing in the
Speaker 1: ancient cooking vessels of crete. And after we talk to
Speaker 1: jey Lynn, we will be talking to Nyoko take more
Speaker 1: about the miracle of Donabe, the ceramic pot that is
Speaker 1: one of the oldest in Japan. Nyoko is a food
Speaker 1: and drink expert. She is also the author of the
Speaker 1: Fantastic Donabe Cookbook, an owner of Toro Kitchen in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: a purveyor of fine Japanese ceramic cookware. But first up
Speaker 1: we go to the dungeons of crete greased to talk
Speaker 1: Bronze age ceramics with Jelyn Morrison. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: just recently took the title of culinary archaeologist for this
Speaker 1: one hotel that I'm working at, because that's the title
Speaker 1: right there. Okay, there we go, because they kept calling
Speaker 1: me an archaeologist. But here in Greece that means that
Speaker 1: you're excavating on the property so that people can build.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, guys, you guys can't call
Speaker 1: me that. Everyone's confusing the whole thing. So like, you know, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we came up with that to be more specific,
Speaker 1: you know, for when I was there doing presentations. And
Speaker 1: I think it works pretty well. I think so too,
Speaker 1: So that's what we'll say. And an enviable or aspirational
Speaker 1: job title for sure. Good job. Yeah it sounds a
Speaker 1: little overinflated sometimes, but you know, no, it's right on
Speaker 1: target for you. Welcome to Point of Origin. Today. We
Speaker 1: are talking pottery, both in traditions and cooking methodol gs,
Speaker 1: and we are very excited to have with us on
Speaker 1: the line from Crete in Greece. Jerylyn Morrison, who is
Speaker 1: a culinary archaeologist who will be talking to us about,
Speaker 1: among other things, some of the pottery traditions and crete
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. On point
Speaker 1: of origin. Sojerlyn, you were kind of fixating on this
Speaker 1: title that you have of culinary archaeologists, but it is
Speaker 1: in some ways a descriptive term for the work you do.
Speaker 1: But can you tell us in your own words what
Speaker 1: kind of work you do and how you how you
Speaker 1: think about the work that you're doing. Yeah. Absolutely, Basically
Speaker 1: what I do is um. I have a very strong
Speaker 1: art background, particularly in the strama arts and pottery, and
Speaker 1: I use that in conjunction with a lot of other
Speaker 1: research in anthropology and archaeology to talk about ancient cooking
Speaker 1: practices and food in a g and Bronze Age in particular,
Speaker 1: and so that encompasses create all the neighboring islands, a
Speaker 1: little bit of Anatolia and the Greek mainland. I use
Speaker 1: a variety of different types of sources to kind of
Speaker 1: look about what people were eating, how they were cooking,
Speaker 1: and then kind of why to try to put that
Speaker 1: into some sort of anthropological context, to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about basically what people were doing every day in the
Speaker 1: world back in the day, back in the Bronze Age. Well,
Speaker 1: in wet Stone parlance, we would call you an origin forager,
Speaker 1: so we can. And what is it about this region
Speaker 1: the Aegean that garnered your attention? Yeah, I kind of
Speaker 1: came here serendipitously. I was down originally down in the
Speaker 1: America's down in Guatemala and Mexico for several years in
Speaker 1: the late nineties, and there was a civil war going
Speaker 1: on and it was really quite too dangerous to be
Speaker 1: there anymore. And I had phoned a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who was an archaeologist and creed Jennifer Moody, and she
Speaker 1: kept saying, you know, you just have to come over
Speaker 1: here and just experience it. And I said, Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: do it. I'll do it. So I did, and I
Speaker 1: really just fell in love with it. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the moment I stepped off the plane, I
Speaker 1: really felt at home. And you know, since then, I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, it's a world of a of
Speaker 1: a lot of contrast. You know, the landscape is very
Speaker 1: contrasting without like the stark mountains and the sea. You know,
Speaker 1: you're in a lot of you know, the geopolitical area
Speaker 1: over here is super rich. It's old. You know, the
Speaker 1: whole origins between the neat Near East and Europe and
Speaker 1: then Western civilization is here, so you know, the whole
Speaker 1: scope is just really different than what I grew up with.
Speaker 1: And I just I really love that. M HM. And
Speaker 1: your specialty is Minoan civilization. Can you say a little
Speaker 1: bit more about how Manoan called sure plays into your work.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a time period that's super dramatic because
Speaker 1: we have the theory and eruption which has happened. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of trading going on. The Minoan civilization is rebuilding.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different ideas about what's happening with
Speaker 1: the economy, what's happening with the political structure between the
Speaker 1: old palaces and the new palaces, you know, plus a
Speaker 1: lot of different influences from the Greek mainland, from the
Speaker 1: Mycenaean culture. So you know, most of the time what
Speaker 1: we do in archaeology and in history is we study
Speaker 1: these big topics like warfare or trade or you know,
Speaker 1: mass migration. And what's nice about cooking and about food
Speaker 1: is that you can kind of study the household level,
Speaker 1: and so that's what I'm most interested in. And then
Speaker 1: once you can look at that, you can kind of
Speaker 1: branch out, because of course food is also influencing farming
Speaker 1: and trading, and sometimes you also see movements of people
Speaker 1: on that. Absolutely yeah. We so often say that the
Speaker 1: study of food isle the study of the movement of
Speaker 1: people and plants, so the migration aspect is super resident
Speaker 1: with us as well. From a more macro view, Create
Speaker 1: is its own an island into itself. For people who
Speaker 1: have not been to Greece or are not clear on
Speaker 1: the distinction between Crete and the mainland Greece, can you
Speaker 1: say more about kind of culturally and geographically what some
Speaker 1: of those differences aren't Oh? Yeah, absolutely, Create is a
Speaker 1: very special island, even in the Aegean because if you
Speaker 1: can imagine for those in the United States, like the
Speaker 1: perimeter is about the size of long island, so it's
Speaker 1: not very long. You can drive east to west and
Speaker 1: about five and a half hours and about the thinnest
Speaker 1: point where I live, and it's only fift twenty minute
Speaker 1: drive to the north coast from the south coast and
Speaker 1: then the longest it can take you to get across
Speaker 1: is about two hours. But what's interesting is that topography
Speaker 1: is unbelievable because there's about three to form large mountain
Speaker 1: mestiefs which just create this micro climates and all sorts
Speaker 1: of variants between the east and the west side of
Speaker 1: the mountains. So the west side of Crete is really
Speaker 1: interesting because it's the coolest, it's the wettest side. And
Speaker 1: basically what happens is the rain will come across the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean and it starts dumping the water there, so, you know,
Speaker 1: as the mountains kind of trapping in, it dumps the water,
Speaker 1: it moves across the island and it continues to dump
Speaker 1: the water until it gets to the far east end,
Speaker 1: and then there there's very little rain left. So the
Speaker 1: east end is much drier, it's much hotter, and also
Speaker 1: create is kind of you know latitude eally, it's not
Speaker 1: straight across the globe, it's kind of angled, so the
Speaker 1: east side is much farther south than the west side,
Speaker 1: and so it's still much hotter down here. And it's tropical.
Speaker 1: It's the only tropical zone in Europe as well, So
Speaker 1: even climactically across this little tiny space of the island,
Speaker 1: you have a huge variation and a lot of mini
Speaker 1: microclimates to the food can be slightly different the seasons,
Speaker 1: you know, the seasonal temperatures within the season can be
Speaker 1: slightly different. And then of course between the high mountain
Speaker 1: plateaus and the sea coast, you know, you get you
Speaker 1: know snow and oftentimes you know, when the snows comes,
Speaker 1: those mountain peaks are covered for about three or four
Speaker 1: months out of the year, so there's quite a variety
Speaker 1: here on the island. It's also extremely grew green. So really,
Speaker 1: even though people like to come here in the summer,
Speaker 1: if you want to experience the food culture and if
Speaker 1: you want to experience some really awesome hikes, the best
Speaker 1: time to come is after the rain start, when we
Speaker 1: kind of have what they call a second spring, and
Speaker 1: that's when all the wild greens start growing, the wild
Speaker 1: mushrooms start coming out, the snails come alive, so everybody's
Speaker 1: out foraging. Everybody's like collecting what they want to eat,
Speaker 1: collecting what they want to do. And then of course
Speaker 1: year round we have a variety of different kinds of
Speaker 1: like food production and process is going on. So you know,
Speaker 1: during this time there's a lot of foraging, there's rackie making,
Speaker 1: wine productions already going in, and then people are starting
Speaker 1: to get ready for for cheese and milk production in
Speaker 1: the spring, so you know, it's extremely rich compared to
Speaker 1: other islands which typically don't have so much areas for crops,
Speaker 1: and then you know, just the variety of the different
Speaker 1: types of mountains, and then the elevation here just makes it.
Speaker 1: You know, you have more accessibility and more stuff. Basically,
Speaker 1: what yeah, utter dream, It sounds like quite a paradise.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit more about your area of focus,
Speaker 1: which is in pottery. You came to this work before
Speaker 1: you were a scholar as an artist. What can you
Speaker 1: tell us about the traditions in pottery in this region.
Speaker 1: They have very very very long fish in here in
Speaker 1: the Aegean with reproduction. The Neolithic culture that was here
Speaker 1: before the Manoans also produced pottery. Create because of its biology,
Speaker 1: has a lot of different types of clay out crops
Speaker 1: or clay exposures across the island, so you can make
Speaker 1: a wide range of vessels. You can make a lot
Speaker 1: of different types of fine wares that can be painted
Speaker 1: very delicately, or you can big course wear vessels like
Speaker 1: their storage jars or their cooking pots. So you really
Speaker 1: have a wide range of like potting materials to deal with,
Speaker 1: and that's true for a lot of places here in
Speaker 1: the Aegean and particularly in Greece, and you know their
Speaker 1: craftsmen and women above all, so you know, making pottery
Speaker 1: was very much like second nature to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to point of origin. I'm interested in the
Speaker 1: material part of the research because mostly when we think
Speaker 1: about vessels for whetstone, it's through a specific culinary or
Speaker 1: gastronomic lens. But what you're referring to is actually the origins, right,
Speaker 1: the raw material. So can you say more about that?
Speaker 1: So one of the things I'm really interested in, both
Speaker 1: as a potter and as an archaeologist, looking into kind
Speaker 1: of the origins of like the Bronze Age vessels and
Speaker 1: in particular the cooking pots, is kind of what types
Speaker 1: of plays the Manlan potters were using and what kind
Speaker 1: of properties they had may be compared to the other
Speaker 1: types of vessels. So you know, we know through ethnography
Speaker 1: and and also talking to modern day potters, is that
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of different play sources on
Speaker 1: the island. Sometimes the modern day potters don't even use
Speaker 1: the clay towards anymore, and they used like industrial plays,
Speaker 1: But about fifties sixty years ago they used all these
Speaker 1: local resources, and so you can see a lot of
Speaker 1: the you know, the natural plays just kind of outcrops
Speaker 1: and exposed everywhere, particularly like in the road cut because
Speaker 1: they're making a lot of new roads on the islands.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of convenient for us um that are
Speaker 1: looking for rock lays. And then in the riverbeds, of course,
Speaker 1: that's like one of the more traditional places to start
Speaker 1: looking for rock lays. And so at the site that
Speaker 1: I work at called mock Class Excavations here on each street,
Speaker 1: it's directed by Jeffrey Souls and Coast Eustavirus, And here
Speaker 1: we actually have a Bronze Age artists and quarters where
Speaker 1: we know there was potters. They're making pottery out of
Speaker 1: the local clay. And I've been extremely fortunate to work
Speaker 1: with a wonderful team that has been looking at the
Speaker 1: different clay sources and looking at the pottery for years.
Speaker 1: And so one of my roles on the project was
Speaker 1: to come in and in particularly look at the cooking
Speaker 1: pots to see, you know, what does the cooking pot
Speaker 1: clay look like, what did these forms look like, And
Speaker 1: then try to go out into the landscape near the
Speaker 1: artists and quarters here at this site and try to
Speaker 1: locate it, work it up, make it, make the cooking
Speaker 1: vessels themselves, and then basically start from scratch and then
Speaker 1: end up with a cooking pot that's viable that you
Speaker 1: couldn't cook in. So so the cool thing is that
Speaker 1: you find out about these material properties with the treating
Speaker 1: clay is that oftentimes the cooking vessels in the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age didn't really appear to have any distinction between those
Speaker 1: that they were making large storage jars out of four
Speaker 1: water jugs out of just all made out of this
Speaker 1: kind of course war clay. There's a rock called philite,
Speaker 1: so with metamorphic rock which is really common here in
Speaker 1: the local geology, and they just kept it in and
Speaker 1: the clay that they mixed it up, and that seemed
Speaker 1: to give it in thermal shock resistance or aided in
Speaker 1: the heating and cooling of the cooking pot to allow
Speaker 1: it to be cooking. So that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: main things that I do when I'm looking at material
Speaker 1: sources and trying to look at forms of forms of
Speaker 1: different types of vessels, particularly in terms of like the
Speaker 1: history of like of culinary study here on the island.
Speaker 1: And did you notice over centuries, stylistic or design changes
Speaker 1: or functional changes in the type of vessels that were
Speaker 1: being used for culinary purposes. Yeah, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: In the minoans stayed around for you know, several thousand years,
Speaker 1: and basically the kind of the iconic vessel was like
Speaker 1: the big pot with three legs, and it's really perfect
Speaker 1: for like boiling and submarine food. And what you find
Speaker 1: in the change of the actual vessel, either at this
Speaker 1: particular site or other sites, like maybe the upper body
Speaker 1: will change a little bit, so instead of having an
Speaker 1: incurving rim, you'll have a rim that that turns outwards.
Speaker 1: So maybe you know, when you put a lid on it,
Speaker 1: lid on it in a different kind of way, but
Speaker 1: it would still be a litted vessel. There are other
Speaker 1: types of newar types of vessels that come in that
Speaker 1: tend to be also a cooking pot with three length
Speaker 1: but the having it close, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: completely open. So it looked like in that situation, whatever
Speaker 1: you're preparing and that kind of vessel, you'd want so
Speaker 1: whatever liquid with inside of the vessel to kind of
Speaker 1: evaporate a little bit quicker or a little bit more easy,
Speaker 1: and you have to think about these vessels too, not
Speaker 1: just as cooking pluts, but they're also found industrial areas,
Speaker 1: So they couldn't to be making like different types of
Speaker 1: costumes or medicines, or maybe even melting different types of
Speaker 1: resins or wax or things like that to create sales
Speaker 1: for the boat, or you know, decode different types of
Speaker 1: twine that they were making for, you know, anything that
Speaker 1: they were producing. So it was kind of like an
Speaker 1: all purpose industrial vessel, but most commonly used for cooking,
Speaker 1: you know, So it was really a good pot that
Speaker 1: was used for heating up stuff. And do you have
Speaker 1: any examples of what some of the dishes might have been.
Speaker 1: We're really luking in each creek because we have excellent
Speaker 1: preservation with a lot of food in the site, and
Speaker 1: we have found in more than one occasion we found
Speaker 1: a cooking pot that have mentals like brown lintles in
Speaker 1: the bottom, or like haloes of the brown lintles that
Speaker 1: were burnt, or like head of roaded out over time.
Speaker 1: We even have like one cooking pot with like the
Speaker 1: bones of two wild hair. And then so we know
Speaker 1: that they were at least like hunting or trapping animals
Speaker 1: as farming and hunting and fishing. Those are like actual
Speaker 1: food remains that we found in the pot. At another
Speaker 1: site called Pupa the loocle boats who are was one
Speaker 1: of the directives the increase of Sophia new She was
Speaker 1: excavating and found actual shellfish called the Olympics or pective
Speaker 1: less inside one of the cooking pots, and so they
Speaker 1: were making kind of a seafood too. So so you
Speaker 1: find the actual food remains sometimes in the vessel, but
Speaker 1: but it's rare. I mean, it's not common. I don't
Speaker 1: want to give you know, misrepresentation of like a Pompey
Speaker 1: ask kind of vision, so you can find them. And
Speaker 1: we're talking what like two thousand year old vessels or
Speaker 1: something like that. She's the three thousand years old. I'm
Speaker 1: just so amazed by that. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: that is precisely what it means to be an archaeologist,
Speaker 1: but still hearing that, especially just given the age of it,
Speaker 1: i mean talking millennia, it really blows my mind about
Speaker 1: the integrity of the clay and then the fact that
Speaker 1: the contents are still able to give us so much information. Mean,
Speaker 1: it's super exciting. And when I'm working with my colleagues
Speaker 1: who study the actual bones and the siege and the show,
Speaker 1: and they can look at like a crushed grape seed
Speaker 1: under the microscope and say, Yep, this grape seed has
Speaker 1: the look of a seed that was crushed most likely
Speaker 1: for line. You're like, oh my god, that's unbelievable. I
Speaker 1: mean that to me is like, it's just super exciting
Speaker 1: to be able to look at the actual preservation of
Speaker 1: the food and me and have an idea of how
Speaker 1: people you know, performed with that particular food product, to
Speaker 1: see what they were what they were doing with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so cool. We'll never get old. How much of
Speaker 1: these traditions, these culinary traditions that are rooted in clay
Speaker 1: pot cooking, how many of them have been retained just
Speaker 1: from what you observe in your time there. Oh, I
Speaker 1: think that's that's that's a really interesting question. Is I
Speaker 1: think that there's multiple traditions going on simultaneously with food
Speaker 1: here in the Aegean. So, first of all, you have
Speaker 1: of claypot cooking, which is slow cooking either in an
Speaker 1: oven or like open air cooking. So the Minoans did
Speaker 1: not have ovens that we recognize like they do today today,
Speaker 1: they would cook in a catch rolla particularly like a
Speaker 1: catch a little type cook pots is that particularly like
Speaker 1: a chickpea type of soup or a big like lamb
Speaker 1: or something like that. That they would do a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of slow cooking hand. So that's like the
Speaker 1: surrend that kind of cooking they do today. They also
Speaker 1: have a thing with grilling, lots and wats and lots
Speaker 1: and lots of food that's grilled. And you know, we
Speaker 1: believe that the Manoans were also grilling. People in the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age also grilled a lot of food. So you
Speaker 1: have those two types of traditions. And then of course
Speaker 1: I believe a percent that they practiced food preservation when
Speaker 1: it came to using the sun or fault blind and
Speaker 1: the sun, you know, and they do those as well today,
Speaker 1: depending on the time of the year or where you are.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I think that those three types
Speaker 1: of traditions are still pretty strong. It's just that they
Speaker 1: you know, they do them a slightly different way with
Speaker 1: slightly different food products. How would the grilling do you
Speaker 1: have any idea how that would have been set up
Speaker 1: over open flames? Well, I mean, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think here when I've been out with people sometimes
Speaker 1: and they want to grill up to meat, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll either have like your wire mesh grill that you
Speaker 1: just kind of pull out and do and you set
Speaker 1: it between two rocks. Or you can also take like
Speaker 1: a big stick, like a limb off a tree, you know,
Speaker 1: and you clean it and it's fresh and so it's
Speaker 1: not dry, and then they just put the meat through
Speaker 1: that and it stays just just fine. It doesn't I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things in the archaeological record
Speaker 1: that you just won't see, we just don't recover because
Speaker 1: they're made out of organic pieces. And so I think
Speaker 1: I'm always fortunate that I like seramics because the majority
Speaker 1: of stuff we find your suram suramic trash really and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's inorganic and for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's a there. It's going to be there except for
Speaker 1: some extreme situations, and so it's made out of leather
Speaker 1: or wood or other you know, other sorts of materials.
Speaker 1: It is won't saying MH. Have you found any non
Speaker 1: clay materials, tools or weapons or anything like that that
Speaker 1: have given you some insight to go along with what
Speaker 1: your research has shown you in uh, studying the clay.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes what you'll find which has really like
Speaker 1: is in the clay you'll see impressions like weavings of
Speaker 1: baskets or weavings of cloths, and often times I think
Speaker 1: about that as like a secondary kind of lining that
Speaker 1: they could have used, particularly when you're making a particular
Speaker 1: kind of vessel. We have this one very complicated vessel.
Speaker 1: It's complicated because it's super thin and yet at the
Speaker 1: same time large, and it's about the size of a
Speaker 1: large sea turtle show and it's basically that shape inside,
Speaker 1: and it's also extremely thin, and it's and it's mold made,
Speaker 1: and it's quite difficult. Nobody has really been able to
Speaker 1: figure out how could produce it. And so if you
Speaker 1: look on the underside of that vessel, it's very you
Speaker 1: can see impressions of some sort of material, but and
Speaker 1: oftentimes you're off you're looking at kind of like the
Speaker 1: negative space of something, you know, embedded in the clay
Speaker 1: that can kind of help you. Other than that, you
Speaker 1: can you can find the odd stone tool, you know,
Speaker 1: like a pivot stone that will go along with the
Speaker 1: potter's wheel to try to understand the mechanics of how
Speaker 1: Potter's wheel could have worked and how you could have
Speaker 1: put that together, which is kind of you know, it's
Speaker 1: very exciting to try to understand, and you know, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll have like obsidian blades, you know, which obviously
Speaker 1: they could have used. It's some sort of splicing tool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. You know, it's it's nothing
Speaker 1: is really isolated in the world when you're making anything,
Speaker 1: all the different types of tools you pull out to use.
Speaker 1: I always try to probe to my problems in that way,
Speaker 1: to see, like what am I doing and and look
Speaker 1: back at the archaeological material and say, okay, this is
Speaker 1: what do I have? What's missing? And then can I
Speaker 1: get to that, you know, from point A to point B,
Speaker 1: and like what's in between? Okay. My last question for
Speaker 1: you is kind of an obvious one perhaps, but when
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to which is how do
Speaker 1: you know where to go? Book? Well, that is a
Speaker 1: very good question, I think actually, because if not so obvious,
Speaker 1: I think when you're looking for new site, it's credibly
Speaker 1: hard and a lot of archaeologists, you know, they might
Speaker 1: grapple with this. For me, I'm very lucky because I'm
Speaker 1: extremely fortunate in the sense that I work on a
Speaker 1: site that has a very long history, and so our
Speaker 1: site was first excavated in nineteen o eight, So so
Speaker 1: I decided been there much longer than the teams that
Speaker 1: I'm working with has has been there. But you know
Speaker 1: there's things about that. You know, when the first X
Speaker 1: became lit speakering, he was working at mor class, he
Speaker 1: was excavating certain points, you know, and then since then
Speaker 1: several other lads have come and then this next way
Speaker 1: with Professor Souls and in Potius of ours, they kind
Speaker 1: of understand the landscape and we can kind of actually
Speaker 1: see I guess it's looking at pattern recognition and the landscape.
Speaker 1: It's like once you're tune your eyes, you know, and
Speaker 1: then when it doesn't look like that was underneath, you
Speaker 1: can kind of go, ah, that looks like some buildings there,
Speaker 1: or you know, these these stones in the roads there's
Speaker 1: form on death in a straight line, Well that's probably
Speaker 1: a wall. You know, things that are natural that are
Speaker 1: lined up in an unnatural way. If that makes me know,
Speaker 1: that's actually a really good answer, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: what is true in so many parts of life. Right
Speaker 1: you you need to pay attention and recognize patterns and
Speaker 1: learn from the patterns and apply what you've learned to
Speaker 1: make informed choices. So yeah, but that's excellent, that's right,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me. I am super inspired after
Speaker 1: talking to you. I think you have just the coolest
Speaker 1: gig ever a culinary archaeologist, and have really given me
Speaker 1: a new appreciation for clay pottery. And I already had
Speaker 1: a deep appreciation, but a newfound appreciation. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us and for sharing all of
Speaker 1: your knowledge with us. Well, thank you so much, Stephen.
Speaker 1: It's a big placere to always talk to you, and
Speaker 1: then I look for for to you coming here. Yes,
Speaker 1: soon soon. You've inspired me, as I said, so it
Speaker 1: won't be long I'll be hitting you up. Sounds good,
Speaker 1: all right, Thanks Carolyn. Hi, this is Stephen calling from
Speaker 1: Whetstone Magazine. H alcohol you, Hi, How are you great?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Thank you for of course, thanks for taking
Speaker 1: the time. I'm really appreciative. I am familiar with your
Speaker 1: work through your Donab cookbook, Thank you. Yeah, which I
Speaker 1: bought a couple of years ago and really really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: So I'm happy to talk to you. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Point of origin. Our guest today is Naoko take More.
Speaker 1: She is author of the cookbook Donabe and she's also
Speaker 1: the owner of Toro Kitchen, which is in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and we are so much looking forward to speaking with
Speaker 1: her today all about dona be. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us now, Co, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. I'm very excited, absolutely as too. So I
Speaker 1: am really interested in earthenware cooking and clay pot cooking
Speaker 1: because it's it connects us to a really long and
Speaker 1: ancient tradition all over the world, many many different cultures,
Speaker 1: but for the donabe in particular, it's a commentary on
Speaker 1: Japanese history. So I was hoping you could tell us
Speaker 1: about what the donabe is and what its origins are.
Speaker 1: So stop means clay and not it means pot. And
Speaker 1: in Japan, back in the really ancient times, there's no
Speaker 1: written history, but it's said that it can be traced
Speaker 1: back to more than ten thousand years ago, but then
Speaker 1: continue to develop and similar to like what we have now,
Speaker 1: that donade can go back to more than thirteen hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, and in the regions like Ega, that's kind
Speaker 1: of like a central of the home shoot the main
Speaker 1: islands of Japan, and Donade just have been the very
Speaker 1: essential cooking tool for Japanese people's lives for many, many centuries,
Speaker 1: and the making of Donade, Colorio donabe all started to
Speaker 1: evolve and develop two certain nineteens of now it's still
Speaker 1: one of the most important cooking vessels in Japanese culture.
Speaker 1: And it's in fact, I would say, it's like a
Speaker 1: national cook player for Japanese people. And how did you
Speaker 1: get into researching? So for me, because I was born
Speaker 1: and grew up in Japan, donade was like already there.
Speaker 1: You know, every household has at least one done. So
Speaker 1: as I grew up, my family always left, you know,
Speaker 1: cooking and eating good food. So don't have it to
Speaker 1: me in a in a grood way. It was like
Speaker 1: an air to me, you know, I never even thought
Speaker 1: of it. It was always there and we always cooked
Speaker 1: in it. Especially on weekend when we have dinner all
Speaker 1: family together at home, donal it was there and it
Speaker 1: was cooked and served right at the table and everybody
Speaker 1: could participate. And when we get together with grandparents or
Speaker 1: the relatives. Don't know, it was always there too, just
Speaker 1: very natural. And also after I realized it was very
Speaker 1: important part of my life in terms of cooking and eating,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't after I moved to the United States,
Speaker 1: which was back in two thousand one. You know, Los
Speaker 1: Angeles is very diverse city and with diverse culture, and
Speaker 1: Japanese food was already quite popular in l A. And
Speaker 1: there are many Japanese restaurants and people you know, to
Speaker 1: sush it and pura and you know other things. But
Speaker 1: I realized that Japanese good food but not very much
Speaker 1: known among people in l A or people in the
Speaker 1: US and Dona. There was basically the almost unknown to
Speaker 1: the American people. And I talked to different people, my
Speaker 1: friends and you know, other people, American people, and they
Speaker 1: all feel like they feel a little bit intimidated by
Speaker 1: the idea of cooking Japanese food at home. So I
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, that's only because they don't know what
Speaker 1: Japanese home cooking is about. And to me, don't they
Speaker 1: really represent the Japanese home cooking and also the essentially
Speaker 1: the Japanese culture of like communal dining and how we
Speaker 1: bomb together. So I felt like other Japanese living in
Speaker 1: the US, I thought it was my nation to kind
Speaker 1: of bring the wonderful Japanese food culture and introduced them
Speaker 1: to people in l A and beyond. So that kind
Speaker 1: of how I started. When you're talking about dishes of
Speaker 1: your early memories, are there certain kinds of donabe that
Speaker 1: are more closely aligned with specific dishes. The basic style
Speaker 1: donade is essentially, you know, like a like a caspitle,
Speaker 1: you know, so there's a ball and the lid. That's it.
Speaker 1: So that's what best known style of donade as I
Speaker 1: grew up. That's actually the only kind of donad I
Speaker 1: was familiar with. And there are different sizes. Sometimes my
Speaker 1: mom pulled out like really large donad when we have
Speaker 1: my grandparents this thing and so there's a big group
Speaker 1: of people, or when I get sick I took a
Speaker 1: day off from Gentary school, my mom made it like
Speaker 1: a porridge, like a very typical like a like comfort
Speaker 1: eating food was Japanese people, and she pulled a tiny
Speaker 1: donadet for individual size and made a porridge. And then
Speaker 1: they are different produces different regions making donade. And over
Speaker 1: the years, especially maybe like past two decades, those really
Speaker 1: like innovative minded trust people, they started to kind of
Speaker 1: design different styles of donade for different modes of cooking.
Speaker 1: That's a great thing about the carrying the tradition, and
Speaker 1: for I think that the Japanese people and especially those
Speaker 1: are distance the definition of tradition is not just doing
Speaker 1: the same same thing over and over and over, but
Speaker 1: the tradition evolves, you know, according to the people's needs
Speaker 1: at the time. So there's different styles of donat started
Speaker 1: to get developed, like a donade design specifically for cooking
Speaker 1: rice perfect rice, and there's a dona there for steaming,
Speaker 1: donad for smoking, etcetera, etcetera. So now I would say
Speaker 1: like they're very exciting time for the culture of donadic cooking, yeah,
Speaker 1: which you yourself are helping to ussure into homes all
Speaker 1: over the US. So thank you for redefining our American
Speaker 1: food culture. So kind of for on a more practical level,
Speaker 1: because mostly in the States, you know, we don't we're
Speaker 1: not accustomed to using clay pot cooking in our own homes.
Speaker 1: Hence maybe why there are some intimidation for people what
Speaker 1: is the cooking application for donabe in one's home. I
Speaker 1: often tell people who are new to don that, you know,
Speaker 1: I understand people who feel intimidated if you've never cooked
Speaker 1: in donade. So I always tell them that dona it's
Speaker 1: really just a cooking pot, but it's an amazing cooking pot.
Speaker 1: So so you can just think of anything you would
Speaker 1: like to cook in a pot and then you can
Speaker 1: cook it in donade. You know, but why do not
Speaker 1: be special? Is the most authentic donade. It's made one
Speaker 1: in person clay and that the ones I introduced from Japan.
Speaker 1: It's come from the region called Eagle in Japan, and
Speaker 1: the entire region Eager used to be that of like
Speaker 1: Diva about four million years ago, so that was like
Speaker 1: a prehistoric era. So the the dona from the region
Speaker 1: is made entirely of the clay from the region. So
Speaker 1: the clay contains a lot of fossilized micro organism from
Speaker 1: the perfect prehistoric era. And so once you know shape
Speaker 1: the donad and then fire it, the body becomes really
Speaker 1: poorous because those you know, fossilizing micro organisms, they become
Speaker 1: they creates the kind of negative tiny negative spaces, and
Speaker 1: so that's really the key to the kind of like
Speaker 1: a magic you know, don't create. So the product body
Speaker 1: of dona, the actually makes the body really strong and durable,
Speaker 1: and it takes longer time for the heat to build.
Speaker 1: But once the heat is built, don't the stays hot
Speaker 1: for a long long time. And after you turn off
Speaker 1: the heat is stays for a long time too. So
Speaker 1: back in the old times, in the centuries ago, people
Speaker 1: somehow new like don't have the makes the food taste better,
Speaker 1: But people didn't really know why. But now they're you know,
Speaker 1: all the scientific studies and their proofs. That's why don't
Speaker 1: have the makes food taste better. It's really because of
Speaker 1: this poorest body and the slow process of building the
Speaker 1: heat and then slow process of cooling down, so that
Speaker 1: gradual temperature change actually is essential for the so called
Speaker 1: many flavors to develop, and all the different flavors kind
Speaker 1: of integrated together. So that's why don't specially great for
Speaker 1: soups to braising too, and and don't know, it's often safe.
Speaker 1: So I often do like a you know, like a
Speaker 1: slow cooking, like a funk of meat, you know, like
Speaker 1: a pop belly, or I cooked you know, like a
Speaker 1: kind of like a big things like this. Uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: I put it in the oven for like seven eight
Speaker 1: hours and I don't have to do anything in a
Speaker 1: mila and and don't have it. That's all the work
Speaker 1: for you sold on that that is that is an
Speaker 1: awesome description. So the poorest clay that you're mentioning, which
Speaker 1: has this history tied back to millions of years ago,
Speaker 1: if you were to source clay from a different prefecture
Speaker 1: or somewhere else in Japan, with that alter the profile
Speaker 1: of the dona and if is that something that is happening,
Speaker 1: it could So the clay from Eager, it's arguably considered
Speaker 1: as the display for for the pot in the world.
Speaker 1: And and there are plays from other regions. And also
Speaker 1: they're much inexpensive, kind of like a mass produced donag
Speaker 1: which contains you know, different materials inside too. So I've
Speaker 1: never tried them like side by side. But to me,
Speaker 1: like when I use anadive from Ega, it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: I just feel this is there, that's the place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you have a retail store in Los Angeles as well,
Speaker 1: Toro Kitchen, where you are selling the donabe, but you
Speaker 1: also have other wares too, So so now I think
Speaker 1: we have more than five hundred different items, including kitchen tools,
Speaker 1: table where some of the country you know, like food items.
Speaker 1: So it's really like it's our mission to spread the
Speaker 1: wonderful Japanese food culture to people outside with Japan, and
Speaker 1: I like to call it happy Donadal life. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily always about like you have to cook everything in donade,
Speaker 1: but it's really the spirit of the donade cooking so
Speaker 1: which is like you enjoy cooking and dyning and involve
Speaker 1: people and creates the more communication with people and also
Speaker 1: make your life more fulfilled. Easier too, easier in cooking
Speaker 1: because I don't know, it's awesome like cooked and serf
Speaker 1: right out of it, so the cleaning is really easy.
Speaker 1: And then we have other like cooking tools and the
Speaker 1: table where the things and from all over Japan, and
Speaker 1: they're all made by different artisans. So each product even
Speaker 1: like a tiny sperm because its own story. So it's
Speaker 1: really like I want to tell people like who makes
Speaker 1: the bites the shops? None of the products we introduce
Speaker 1: are you know, there only because it looks pretty, you know.
Speaker 1: We introduced those items because we love them so much,
Speaker 1: and we want to bring the stories to people, and
Speaker 1: we're hoping that people who buy them they enjoy them
Speaker 1: for a long time and once you have like such
Speaker 1: a nice it and with the stories, the way you
Speaker 1: appreciate cooking and dining really changed even when you were
Speaker 1: just preparing just you know, like a bowl of yogurt
Speaker 1: and granola, or the feast with family and friends. I
Speaker 1: want to make it even a little bit more meaningful.
Speaker 1: So that's that's a kind of mission throughout products so
Speaker 1: beautiful and it's really true what you say. I am
Speaker 1: thinking of many meals that I've had in Clay that
Speaker 1: have a completely different flavor profile just because of the
Speaker 1: vessel in which it was being served. So if we
Speaker 1: want to live the happy Donabe life, which I love
Speaker 1: and I certainly inspired to do, is the best way
Speaker 1: for people to bring Donabe into their lives. Just go
Speaker 1: on your website and order what maybe one of the
Speaker 1: classic vessels. Would that be a good place for someone
Speaker 1: to start, Yes, there's really And also if you already
Speaker 1: have like a specific purposes you want to really like
Speaker 1: do for don't have the cooking for example, like if
Speaker 1: you really want something way for cooking premium quality rice,
Speaker 1: you know you can start with the don't have the
Speaker 1: rice cooker. And of course you know that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you can only cook rice in the Donabe and
Speaker 1: any Donabe and you know, with the specific purposes can
Speaker 1: be used for you know, other purposes. So it depends
Speaker 1: that the Classics by Donada is to me like that
Speaker 1: really the must have items you know in your life
Speaker 1: and then makes your life much easier and more fun
Speaker 1: and and more fulfilling definitely. And what is your go
Speaker 1: to rice recipe when you're cooking in the Donab I
Speaker 1: must say pretty rice. That's always to me the best.
Speaker 1: And I could rise almost every single day and sometimes
Speaker 1: twice a day, and I use this same don't have
Speaker 1: a rice cooker for guests almost fifteen years. You know,
Speaker 1: you can see the really shiny grains of rice, and
Speaker 1: you smell the really natural, beautiful aroma, you know, like
Speaker 1: this week aroma. So the plain right to me is
Speaker 1: my you know go to. Well, I'm really really grateful
Speaker 1: that you've spent the time schooling us on all things
Speaker 1: Dona be and your Donabe cookbook is amazing must mustard
Speaker 1: and for those of us in Los Angeles we can
Speaker 1: visit you in person, and the rest of us will
Speaker 1: have to order the classic online. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today on point of origin. Thank you
Speaker 1: so must cleasure Okay, thanks to Wako. Have a good day,
Speaker 1: chairs m h M. Hm m m m m m
Speaker 1: m m m m m m m m m m
Speaker 1: and that's it for this episode. Point of Origin is
Speaker 1: a podcast from My Heart Media and wet Stone Magazine
Speaker 1: executive produced by Christopher Hasiotis and hosted by me Stephen Saderfield.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Cat Hong for editing, supervising producer Gabrielle Collins,
Speaker 1: and a very special thanks to my business partner, wet
Speaker 1: Stone co founder Melissa she who helped produce this podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks mel and thanks to all of you for supporting
Speaker 1: wet Stone and listening to the Point of Origin podcast
Speaker 1: for all of the latest on all things point of
Speaker 1: Order gen. You can follow us on Instagram at Whetstone
Speaker 1: Magazine or online at Whetstone Magazine dot com. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next week at the Point of Origin. H h
Speaker 1: h h