![Guinea_Photo_15](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Guinea_Photo_15.jpg)
Mortar and pestle is a set of two simple
tool
A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...
s used from the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
to the present day to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the
kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...
,
laboratory
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...
, and
pharmacy
Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...
. The ''mortar'' () is characteristically a bowl, typically made of hard wood, metal, ceramic, or hard stone such as
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
. The ''pestle'' (,
also ) is a blunt, club-shaped object. The substance to be ground, which may be wet or dry, is placed in the mortar where the pestle is pounded, pressed, and rotated into the substance until the desired texture is achieved.
Mortars and pestles have been used in cooking since prehistory; today they are typically associated with the profession of
pharmacy
Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...
due to their historical use in preparing medicines. They are used in chemistry settings for pulverizing small amounts of chemicals; in arts and cosmetics for pulverizing pigments, binders, and other substances; in
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
s for making
grog
Grog is a term used for a variety of alcoholic beverages.
The word originally referred to rum diluted with water (and later on long sea voyages, also added the juice of limes or lemons), which British Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon introduced ...
; in
masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
and in other types of construction requiring pulverized materials. In cooking, they are typically used to crush spices, to make
pesto
Pesto () is a sauce that traditionally consists of crushed garlic, European pine nuts, coarse salt, basil leaves, and hard cheese such as Parmigiano-Reggiano (also known as Parmesan cheese) or Pecorino Sardo (cheese made from sheep's milk), a ...
and certain cocktails such as the
mojito
Mojito (; ) is a traditional Cuban punch. The cocktail often consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, soda water, and mint. Its combination of sweetness, citrus, and herbaceous mint flavors ...
, which requires the gentle crushing of sugar, ice, and mint leaves in the glass with a pestle.
The invention of mortars and pestles seems related to that of quern-stones, which use a similar principle of naturally indented, durable, hard stone bases and mallets of stone or wood to process food and plant materials, clay, or minerals by stamping, crushing, pulverizing and grinding.
A key advantage of the mortar is that it presents a deeper bowl for confining the material to be ground without the waste and spillage that occurs with flat grinding stones. Another advantage is that the mortar can be made large enough for a person to stand upright and adjacent to it and use the combined strength of their upper body and the force of gravity for better stamping. Large mortars allow for several people with several pestles to stamp the material faster and more efficiently. Working over a large mortar that a person can stand next to is physically easier and more
ergonomical (by ensuring a better posture of the whole body) than for a small quern, where a person has to crouch and use the uncomfortable, repetitive motion of hand grinding by sliding.
Mortars and pestles anticipate modern blenders and grinders and can be described as having the function of small, mobile, hand-operated mills that don't require electricity or fuel to operate.
Large wooden mortars and wooden pestles would predate and lead to the invention of butterchurns, as domestication of livestock and use of dairy (during the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
) came well after the mortar and pestle. Butter would be churned from cream or milk in a wooden container with a long wooden stick, very like the use of wooden mortars and pestles.
History
Mortars and pestles were invented in the Stone Age, when humans found that processing food and various other materials by grinding and crushing into smaller particles allowed for improved use and various advantages, such as hard grains could be cooked and digested easier if ground first, grog would vastly improve fired clay and larger objects such as blocks of salt would be much easier to handle and use when ground and pulverized into smaller pieces. Various stone mortars and pestles have been found, while wooden or clay ones would perish much easier during the course of time.
Scientists have found ancient mortars and pestles in Southwest Asia that date back to approximately 35000 BC.
Stone mortars and pestles have also been used by the
Kebaran culture (
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
with
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
) from 22000 to 18000 BC to crush grains and other plant material. The Kebaran mortars that have been found are sculpted, slightly conical bowls of porous stone, and the pestles are made of a smoother type of stone.
Another Stone Age example are the rock mortars in the
Raqefet Cave
Raqefet Cave (''Cyclamen Cave'') is a Late Natufian archaeological site located in Mount Carmel in the north of Israel. It was discovered in 1956. The site indicates plants were already used as food at Raqefet, before the advent of agriculture.
...
in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, which are natural cavities in the cave floors, used by Late
Natufian
The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...
s around 10000 BC to grind cereals for brewing beer in the cavities. These rock mortars are large enough for a person to stand upright by them and crush the cereals inside the cavity with a long wooden pestle.
Ancient Africans, Sumerians, Egyptians, Polynesians, Native Americans, Chinese, Indians, Greeks, Celts and countless other people used mortars and pestles for processing materials and substances for cooking, arts, cosmetics, simple chemicals, ceramics and medicine.
Since the 14th century, bronze mortars became more popular than stone ones, especially for use in alchemy and early chemistry. Bronze mortars would become more elaborate than stone ones, and had the advantage to be harder, and were easily cast with handles, knobs for handling and spouts for easier pouring. However, the big disadvantage was that bronze would react with acids and other chemicals and corrode easily. Since the late 17th century, glazed porcelain mortars became very useful, since they wouldn't be damaged by chemicals and would be easy to clean.
Etymology
The English word ''mortar'' derives from middle English ''morter'', from old French ''mortier'', from classical
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''mortarium'', meaning, among several other usages, "receptacle for pounding" and "product of grinding or pounding"; perhaps related to Sanskrit "mrnati" - to crush, to bruise.
The classical Latin ''pistillum'', meaning "pounder", led to English ''pestle''. Stemming from the pistillum, the word
pesto
Pesto () is a sauce that traditionally consists of crushed garlic, European pine nuts, coarse salt, basil leaves, and hard cheese such as Parmigiano-Reggiano (also known as Parmesan cheese) or Pecorino Sardo (cheese made from sheep's milk), a ...
in Italian cuisine means created with the pestle.
The Roman poet
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...
applied both ''mortarium'' and ''pistillum'' to articles used in the preparation of drugs, reflecting the early use of the mortar and pestle as a symbol of a pharmacist or apothecary.
Mortar as a synonym for cement in masonry came from the use of mortars and pestles to grind the materials for creating cement. The short
bombard __NOTOC__
Bombard may refer to the act of carrying out a bombardment. It may also refer to:
Individuals
*Alain Bombard (1924–2005), French biologist, physician and politician; known for crossing the Atlantic on a small boat with no water or food
...
cannon was called "mortar" in French, because the first versions of these cannons looked like big metal mortars of the Medieval Ages and they required to be filled with gunpowder, like a mortar would be full of powdered material.
Mortar and pestle in culture and symbols
![Bilibin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Bilibin._Baba_Yaga.jpg)
The antiquity of the mortar and pestle is well documented in early writing, such as the Egyptian
Ebers Papyrus of ~1550 BC (the oldest preserved piece of medical literature) and the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
(Numbers 11:8 and Proverbs 27:22).
In Indian mythology, Samudra Manthan from Bhagavata Purana creates amrita, the nectar of immortality, by churning the ocean with a pestle.
Since medieval times, mortars would be placed or carved on the gravestones of pharmaceuts and doctors.
In Russian and Eastern European folklore,
Baba Yaga
In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga, also spelled Baba Jaga (from Polish), is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. In fairy tales Baba Yaga flies around in a ...
is described and pictured as flying through the forest standing inside a large wooden mortar (stupa), holding the long wooden pestle in one hand to remove obstacles in front of her, and using the broom in her other hand to sweep and remove her traces behind her. This seems as a trace of some ancient rituals connecting the witch symbols of Baba Yaga with the use of mortars in alchemy, pharmacy and early chemistry, which were all seen as magic by uneducated people in Medieval Ages.
Modern pharmacies, especially in Germany, still use mortars and pestles as logos.
Uses
Medicine
![PharmacistsMortar](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/PharmacistsMortar.svg)
Mortars and pestles were traditionally used in pharmacies to crush various ingredients prior to preparing an extemporaneous
prescription. The mortar and pestle, with the
Rod of Asclepius
In Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius (⚕; grc, Ράβδος του Ασκληπιού, , sometimes also spelled Asklepios), also known as the Staff of Aesculapius and as the asklepian, is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god A ...
, the Green Cross, and others, is one of the most pervasive symbols of pharmacology, along with the
show globe
A show globe is a glass vessel of various shapes and sizes containing a colorful liquid. It has been a symbol of pharmacy from the 17th century England to the early 20th century in the United States. It marked the drugstore or apothecary in much ...
.
For pharmaceutical use, the mortar and the head of the pestle are usually made of
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
, while the handle of the pestle is made of
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
. This is known as a
Wedgwood
Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...
mortar and pestle and originated in 1759. Today the act of mixing ingredients or reducing the particle size is known as
trituration
Trituration (Latin, ''grinding'') is the name of several different methods used to process materials. In one sense, it is a form of comminution (reducing the particle size of a substance). In another sense, it is the production of a homogeneous pow ...
.
Mortars and pestles are also used as
drug paraphernalia
"Drug paraphernalia" is a term to denote any equipment, product or accessory that is intended or modified for making, using or concealing drugs, typically for recreational purposes. Drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamin ...
to grind up pills to speed up absorption when they are
ingested
Ingestion is the consumption of a substance by an organism. In animals, it normally is accomplished by taking in a substance through the mouth into the gastrointestinal tract, such as through eating or drinking. In single-celled organisms inges ...
, or in preparation for
insufflation
In religious and magical practice, insufflation and exsufflation are ritual acts of blowing, breathing, hissing, or puffing that signify variously expulsion or renunciation of evil or of the devil (the Evil One), or infilling or blessing with go ...
. To finely ground drugs, not available in liquid
dosage form
Dosage forms (also called unit doses) are pharmaceutical drug products in the form in which they are marketed for use, with a specific mixture of active ingredients and inactive components (excipients), in a particular configuration (such as a ca ...
is used also if patients need artificial nutrition such as
parenteral nutrition
Parenteral nutrition (PN) is the feeding of nutritional products to a person intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion. The products are made by pharmaceutical compounding companies. The person receives a nutritional mi ...
or by
nasogastric tube
Nasogastric intubation is a medical process involving the insertion of a plastic tube (nasogastric tube or NG tube) through the nose, down the oesophagus, and down into the stomach. Orogastric intubation is a similar process involving the inserti ...
.
Food preparation
![Bangkajf](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Bangkajf.JPG)
Mortars are also used in cooking to prepare wet or oily ingredients such as
guacamole
Guacamole (; (informally shortened to ''guac'' in the United States since the 1980s) is an avocado-based dip, spread, or salad first developed in Mexico. In addition to its use in modern Mexican cuisine, it has become part of international cuisi ...
,
hummus and
pesto
Pesto () is a sauce that traditionally consists of crushed garlic, European pine nuts, coarse salt, basil leaves, and hard cheese such as Parmigiano-Reggiano (also known as Parmesan cheese) or Pecorino Sardo (cheese made from sheep's milk), a ...
(which derives its name from the pestle pounding), as well as grinding spices into powder. The
molcajete
A ''molcajete'' (; Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl ''molcaxitl'') and ''tejolote'' are stone tools, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, similar to the South American batan, used for grinding various food products.
Descripti ...
, a version used by pre-Hispanic
Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Withi ...
cultures including the
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
and
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
, stretching back several thousand years, is made of
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
and is used widely in Mexican cooking. Other
Native American nations use mortars carved into the
bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...
to grind
acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...
s and other nuts. Many such depressions can be found in their territories.
In
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, very large mortars are used with wooden
mallet
A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. The term is descriptive of the overall size and proport ...
s to prepare
mochi
is a Japanese rice cake made of , a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally ma ...
. A regular sized
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese mortar and pestle are called a
''suribachi'' and ''surikogi'', respectively.
Granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
mortars and pestles are used in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, as well as
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. In
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, it is used extensively to make spice mixtures for various delicacies as well as day to day dishes. With the advent of motorized grinders, use of the mortar and pestle has decreased. It is traditional in various
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
ceremonies (such as weddings, and
upanayanam
''Upanayana'' ( sa, उपनयनम्, lit=initiation, translit=Upanāyanam) is a Hindu educational sacrament, one of the traditional saṃskāras or rites of passage that marked the acceptance of a student by a preceptor, such as a ''guru'' ...
) to crush
turmeric
Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast ...
in these mortars.
In
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
, it is known as ''batu lesung''. Large
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
mortars, with long (2–3 foot) wood pestles were used in
West Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
to grind meat for a type of
meatloaf
Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. ...
, or
kibbeh
Kibbeh (, also kubba and other spellings; ar, كبة, kibba; tr, içli köfte) is a family of dishes based on spiced ground meat, onions, and grain, popular in Middle Eastern cuisine.
In Levantine cuisine, kibbeh is usually made by pounding ...
, as well as the
hummus variety known as
masabcha
Msabbaha ( ar, مسبحة, musabbaḥa, also romanized musabbaha, literally "swimming" also known as mashausha or mashawsha ( ar, مشوشة) is a variation of hummus popular in the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical ge ...
. In
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and the Netherlands mortar is known as ''Cobek'' or ''Tjobek'' and pestle is known as ''Ulekan'' or ''Oelekan''. The chobek is shaped like a deep saucer or plate. The ulekan is either pistol-shaped or an ovoid. It is often used to make fresh
sambal
Sambal is an Indonesian chilli sauce or paste, typically made from a mixture of a variety of chilli peppers with secondary ingredients, such as shrimp paste, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallion, palm sugar, and lime juice. ''Sambal'' is an ...
, a spicy chili
condiment
A condiment is a preparation that is added to food, typically after cooking, to impart a specific Flavoring, flavor, to enhance the flavor, or to complement the dish. A table condiment or table sauce is more specifically a condiment that is serv ...
, hence the ''sambal ulek/oelek'' denote its process using pestle. It is also used to grind peanut and other ingredients to make peanut sauce for
gado-gado
''Gado-gado'' ( Indonesian or Betawi) is an Indonesian salad of raw, slightly boiled, blanched or steamed vegetables and hard-boiled eggs, boiled potato, fried tofu and tempeh, and ''lontong'' (rice wrapped in a banana leaf), served with a ...
.
Husking and dehulling
![Wooden rice mortar 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Wooden_rice_mortar_3.jpg)
Large mortars and pestles are still commonly used in developing countries to husk and dehull grain. These are usually made of wood, and operated by one or more persons.
In the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, mortar and pestles are specifically associated with de-husking
rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
. A notable traditional mortar and pestle is the boat-shaped ''bangkang pinawa'' or ''bangkang pangpinawa'', literally "boat (''
bangka'') for unpolished rice", usually carved from a block of
molave or other hardwood. It is pounded by two or three people. The name for the mortar, ''lusong'', is the origin of the name of the largest island in the Philippines -
Luzon
Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...
.
Large wooden mortars and pestles have been used to hull grain in West Africa for centuries. When enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas, they brought this technology—and knowledge of how to use it—with them. During the
Middle Passage, some slave ships carried un-hulled rice, and enslaved African women were tasked with using mortars and pestles to prepare it for consumption. In both colonial North and South America, rice continued to be primarily milled by hand in this way until around the mid 1700s when mechanical mills became more widespread.
Material
Good mortar and pestle-making materials must be hard enough to crush the substance rather than be worn away by it. They cannot be too
brittle
A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Bre ...
either, or they will break during the pounding and grinding. The material should also be cohesive, so that small bits of the mortar or pestle do not mix in with the ingredients. Smooth and non-porous materials are chosen that will not absorb or trap the substances being ground.
![Pilon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Pilon.jpg)
In
food preparation
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...
, a rough or absorbent material may cause the strong
flavour of a past ingredient to be tasted in food prepared later. Also, the food particles left in the mortar and on the pestle may support the growth of
microorganism
A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...
s. When dealing with
medication
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...
s, the previously prepared
drugs
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalat ...
may interact or mix, contaminating the currently used ingredients.
Rough ceramic mortar and pestle sets can be used to reduce substances to very fine powders, but stain easily and are brittle. Porcelain mortars are sometimes conditioned for use by grinding some sand to give them a rougher surface which helps to reduce the particle size. Glass mortars and pestles are fragile, but stain-resistant and suitable for use with liquids. However, they do not grind as finely as the ceramic type.
Other materials used include stone, often marble or agate, wood (highly absorbent), bamboo, iron, steel, brass, and
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
. Mortar and pestle sets made from the wood of old grape vines have proved reliable for grinding salt and pepper at the dinner table. Uncooked rice is sometimes ground in mortars to clean them. This process must be repeated until the rice comes out completely white. Some stones, such as molcajete, need to be seasoned first before use. Metal mortars are kept lightly oiled.
Automatic mortar grinder
Since the results obtained with hand grinding are not easily reproducible, most laboratories use automatic mortar grinders. Grinding time and pressure of the mortar can be adjusted and fixed, saving time and labor.
The first automatic Mortar Grinder was invented by F. Kurt Retsch in 1923 and named the "Retschmill" after him.
Advantages
The use of mortar and pestle, pestling, offers the advantage that the substance is crushed with low energy so that the substance will not warm up.
Gallery
File:Mortar and Pestle - Greece.jpg, Mortar and Pestle from bronze alloy, Greece.
File:Mitmita being made in mortar and pestle.jpg, Mitmita made in Ethiopia.
File:Cobek.jpg, ''Tjobek'' the Indonesian word in Dutch spelling for mortars and pestles.
File:ओखल र मुसल.jpg, A traditional Nepali mortar and pestle.
File:Molcajete y tejolote.jpg, Molcajete y tejolote, Mexico.
File:Lao cuisine khok.jpg, A Lao‑style mortar and pestle.
File:MörserPflanzenmaterial.jpg, Mortar used to pulverize plant material
File:Wooden mortar and pestle.jpg, A Wooden mortar and pestle
File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art mtw 0688 mtw 1354.1.jpg, alt=Pestle and mortar made of brass or quaternary copper alloy, piece cast, engraved, ringmatted and inlaid with silver, copper and a black compound., Iran, Khurasan. Late 12th or early 13th century AD. Khalili Collection
The Khalili Collections are eight distinct art collections assembled by Nasser D. Khalili over five decades. Together, the collections include some 35,000 works of art, and each is considered among the most important in its field.
Among these ...
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File:Stone mortar unearthed at Khirbet Shumeila.jpg, A stone mortar unearthed at archaeological site in Israel
See also
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Cupstone
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Dheki
A dheki is an agricultural tool used for threshing, to separate rice grains from their outer husks, while leaving the bran layer, thus producing brown rice. Dhekis have generally fallen into disuse because of the availability of technologies such ...
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Makitra
A small ''makitra'' and a grinding stick next to it
A ( pl, makutra) is a big clay mixing bowl with a rough surface. With the help of a special (usually wooden, rarely porcelain) grinding stick with a ball-shaped end, a ''makitra'' can be use ...
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Metate
A metate (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican cultures, metates are typically used by women who would grind nixtamalized maize and other organic ...
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Millstone
Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones.
Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...
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Muddler
A muddler is a bartender's tool, used like a pestle to mash—or muddle—fruits, herbs and spices in the bottom of a glass to release their flavor.
Cocktails that require the use of a muddler include:
* Mojito, made with light rum
* Caipirinh ...
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Molcajete
A ''molcajete'' (; Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl ''molcaxitl'') and ''tejolote'' are stone tools, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, similar to the South American batan, used for grinding various food products.
Descripti ...
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Oralu kallu
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Quern-stone
Quern-stones are stone tools for hand-grinding a wide variety of materials. They are used in pairs. The lower stationary stone of early examples is called a saddle quern, while the upper mobile stone is called a muller, rubber or handstone. The ...
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Stone and muller
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Suribachi and surikogi
''Suribachi'' () and ''Surikogi'' () are a Japanese mortar and pestle. These mortars are used in Japanese cooking to crush different ingredients such as sesame seeds.
The ''suribachi'' is a pottery bowl, glazed on the outside and with a rou ...
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''Usu'' and ''Kine'', large pestle and mortar used in the production of
Mochi
is a Japanese rice cake made of , a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally ma ...
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Yagen
is a crushing tool used in phytotherapy in Japan. It uses a wheel which is rolled back and forth to crush ingredients.
It differs from Mortar and pestle used in Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foo ...
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Household Stone tools in Karnataka
Household stone implements in Karnataka, India used for wet grinding, dry grinding and pounding are oralu kallu, beeso kallu, dundagallu and kutni.
Pronunciation
In Kannada, the official and chief language of Karnataka, oralu kallu is written ...
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The Knight of the Burning Pestle
''The Knight of the Burning Pestle'' is a play in five acts by Francis Beaumont, first performed at Blackfriars Theatre in 1607 and published in a book size, quarto in 1613. It is the earliest whole parody (or pastiche) play in English. The pl ...
References
External links
Example of an automatic mortar grinder
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mortar And Pestle
Food grinding tools
Alchemical tools
Laboratory porcelainware
Laboratory equipment
Professional symbols
Kebaran culture