In this electronic age, not everyone knows about mortars and pestles.
If you’re younger than 30, you might have heard of them in passing, imagining them as objects right out of antiquity. Aren’t those the tools they used to grind grain and mix medicines in the olden days? Relics from the Stone Age before food processors?
Far from being found in ancient artifacts catalogs, mortars and pestles are still used today. Anyone in chemistry and pharmaceutics is very familiar with them. Some gourmet chefs use them, and they occupy space in the kitchens of many private homes.
Kenneth Alexander, a registered pharmacist and professor in the college of pharmacy at the University of Toledo, said mortars and pestles were used by the earliest humans. Ancient medicine men used them to grind their herbs, and the Egyptians used them to grind food and cosmetics, he said.
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“Through the early first century, they were still grinding with either stone or wood because pure glass had not been discovered yet,” Mr. Alexander said.
Mortars are sometimes in the shape of a bowl or flute. Pestles are their cylindrical companions that are slightly curved on the end for handlers to pound and smash ingredients inside the mortar. Some mortars are small, short, and squatty and only a couple of inches in diameter. Others are slender and several inches tall. In the early 18th and 19th centuries, they were large, Mr. Alexander said, from 12 inches to 18 inches tall, and from 6 inches to 8 inches in diameter.
Some of these primitive tools are made from stone. Metal ones may be brass, iron, and silver, and wood ones come in walnut, cherry, hickory, and oak.
“We still have in chemistry iron mortars and pestles. If you go to Mexico you can get one made out of lava and rock,” Mr. Alexander said. He added that the Chinese use brass mortars and pestles for traditional Chinese medicine.
You’ll find glass mortars and pestles in use in the pharmaceutical industry to prepare liquid products, he said, and ceramic ones are used to grind powders in pharmacy. And yes, the compounding process still occurs in independent pharmacies and in some chain pharmacies, he said.
Cooks use metal, ceramic, wood, and porcelain mortars and pestles mostly to grind herbs.
“You can grind coffee in a mortar and pestle, but it’s easier in a blender,” Mr. Alexander said.
Probably. And you don’t have to frequent antique shops to encounter these essential tools from the pre-industrial age.
Contact Rose Russell at rrussell@theblade.com or 419-724-6178.
First Published August 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
