The first of a three part series on Vintage Kitchen tools and vessels
The average home cook’s kitchen today is full of gadgets without which it would seem impossible to whip up a meal or a snack!
Admittedly, this is the age of the fast and the furious. High speed mixies mincing, chopping and turning into paste everything in its manacles of steel; air fryers turning into a crisp any food within minutes and without a trace of oil; choppers, dough kneaders with robust hooks doing all the muscle work; microwave ovens making it possible to thaw frozen food into steaming hot in a few minutes. The kitchen itself seems like a digital zone where sounds of frying, steaming and sautéing are mingled with beeps and clicks. The once plain home cook template has changed into a culinary Ninja, hitting buttons and turning dials.
I am reminded of my granny’s kitchen, with their quaint collection of vessels, choppers and grinding stones, and this prompted me to write about some of the kitchen aids we see much less of nowadays.
THE ATTUKALLU /AMMIKALLU
THEN
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In my family we buy idli/dosa batter whenever we want to tuck into steaming hot idlis. A plethora of idli batters, some ground with ragi or different grains are readily available to choose. But this is much different from the memory I hold of of my mother patiently grinding the batter on her attukallu.
South Indians born in the 70s’ and earlier will surely remember this round stone on which was painstakingly grounded, soaked rice and dal for making soft fluffy idlis
The aattukkal is a round wedge-shaped stone with a pit in the middle, with a kuzhavi, a cylindrical rounded stone. Little amounts of rice and dal were ground with unending effort.
The ammikkal is a flat marked stone used to crush chutneys. This is also called sil-batta in North India.
However with the advent of the electric Mixer – Grinder, the attukallu soon was a relic and reminder of the painful hours spent in grinding idli/dosa batter. The Mixer Grinder with its hefty rotating stones was quite a wonder when it first arrived in my mother’s kitchen and the small flat ammikallu or sil batta also was swiftly replaced by the three jar mixie.
Although these grinding stones have very limited use in the modern kitchen it was an integral part of wedding and other ceremonies.
The ammikkal was used in wedding ceremonies for the solemn ammimidithal ritual, in which the groom places the bride’s right foot on the ammi (flat grinding stone) to stress that theirs is a marriage for keeps — the solid foundation of their happy married life.
During valaikappu ceremony (formal bangle-wearing ritual a few weeks before the delivery of a child), a childless couple is made to sit in front of the pestle kept on a mat, symbolising a baby, and the girl is asked to place drops of milk from a cup on it, as if feeding the baby. This ritual is supposed to be a sort of blessing for the couple to beget a child soon.
THE ATTA CHAKKI
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Today, most of our atta comes well packaged and promises that it is fortified with vitamins and health. But in the kitchens of yore, good health was a natural side effect of working at the atta chakki, which was a commonplace in most homes. It comprises of two round and flat stones which moves around continuously to mill the grains into a fine powder.
Incidentally, Chakki Chalasana is a yoga asana which reduces belly fat and straightens the spine. Earlier, women were recommended moving the chakki as an exercise for an easier childbirth.
CHATI MADHANI
Many of us have seen pictures of the mechanical butter churner or the Madhani (pronounced Mathani in north India). A rope is pulled to move the churning rod and paddles. The Madhani in the rural life is almost always synonymous with prosperity, gaiety, health and abundance. There are innumerable stories and depictions of the madhani associated with the Hindu God Krishna and his love for butter which he stole out of his mother’s churning pot.
KT Achaya in his book, A Historical Definition of Indian Food quotes a part of Sangam literature, where the churning of butter is described most poetically.
“The growl of a tiger…”
The Sangam Tamil Literature between the third and sixth centuries AD, vividly describes the making and vending of vennai (butter) . The sound of the churning is poetically compared to the ‘growl of a tiger’. After churning , the cowherd’s wife sets off to sell butter, ‘placing the pot with it’s speckled mouth on her head, supported by a circlet of flowers’ – KT ACHAYA – A historical dictionary of Indian Food
A kitchen accessory that has been around from the third century has now also fallen into the jaws of modern electronics with the advent of the single button hand blender with attachments to churn, blend and mince.
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BONTI/ ARUVAMANAI
In my childhood, i had often seen my mother and grandmother peeling and chopping vegetables using the aruvamanai with a precision that was astounding. Their dexterous handling of this curved blade always fascinated me. However, I have never attempted to try this out, quite sure that I would certainly lose my fingers in the process.
The Aruvamanai is found in many parts of India. It is widely used in Bengal and is called the bonti. Not only is it used for cutting and peeling vegetables, it is also used for scaling fish. It is used in Maharashtra, Odisha, Bihar and even Nepal where it is called the Chulesi.
The bonti/ aruvamanai and its many cousins all over India not only chop, they can mince and pare, grate and slice. It’s indeed sad that these fascinating curved knives are slowly becoming obsolete as lesser and lesser cooks are able to master the skills to use them.
The entry of vegetable choppers and food processors which promise to slice , mince and chop vegetables do make these easy for cooks today, but they are nowhere compare with the versatility of the bonti or aruvamanai
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Even though some of these kitchen aids have slowly passed into the annals of time, there is a great joy in the evocation of these memories. The smells, tastes, aromas of our childhood follow us throughout the perimeter of our lives. They linger on tugging at our sleeve, in our foods, in our choices, in the utensils we use.
The bright gleaming food processors with their indefatigable energy have taken away the bonhomie of women chopping and chatting together, of the laughter and the critique on vegetables and fruits, the easy exchanges of recipes and the lending of hand to one another.
As we become the one-person army pushing buttons, turning dials, sensitive to the blips and beeps of our gadgets there is a bitter sweet sense of losing something more than just the old antiquated tools of the kitchen.
End of part 1
FOODOLOGICS 
As always, I love this article. We were on a road trip last year, and we stopped on the side of the road on the country side at the kids request to watch a woman pounding cassava on the traditional mortar and pestle. IT is similar to the attukalu but made of wood (like a tall wooden narrow pot),and the pestle is a long and thickish wooden pole. They had never seen anything like that before, it is sad that these things are dying out so fast. My culture’s versions of an ammikkal is used to grind finger millet and sorghum for porridge, I remember my grandmother had one many years ago. We also have a wooden whisk similar to the mathani (I forget what it is called) used whisk soup.
I look forward to the other parts of this series.
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Thank u so much for sharing your memories!
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