CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM: Stone mortars at a market in Kalaymyo, a largely Chin town on the border of Chin State. A man cooks supper in the evening at a small café in Hsipaw, in Shan State. A woman in Mrauk U deep-fries fritters in a wok.
COOKS IN BURMA STILL WORK with hand-powered tools—mostly mortars and cleavers—rather than processors and juicers. While I don’t yearn to return to hard labor in the kitchen, the contrast serves as a reminder that there are many ways to prepare food, and that low-tech tools can sometimes do a better job.
I’m thinking particularly of the mortar and pestle. Some mortars are better for one thing than for another, but a good solid stone mortar with a heavy, comfortable-in-the-hand pestle is a fine tool for many purposes. So is a large ceramic mortar with a wooden pestle. You can smash a clove of garlic or grind chopped shallots or ginger to a paste with a few swipes of the pestle. And you can blend ingredients together for a curry paste with just a little pounding. A mortar does the job so quickly, and is so easy to clean, that I’m never tempted to use the food processor—at least not for small quantities.
But when it comes to larger quantities, or to tasks like pureeing cooked beans into a soup, I am very grateful to have the processor; it does a great job in minutes.
There are many different mortar design options. In Burma, the two I’ve seen most often are the Rakhine mortar, a flat stone bowl with a stone pestle (it’s great for grinding), and the tall brass mortar of central Burma with a wooden pestle.
If you have enough space, I urge you to find yourself a stone mortar. Get one that is large enough to hold a couple of cups, for it will be easier to use, with less risk of ingredients splattering. I promise that you’ll soon find yourself reaching for it whenever there is garlic or ginger to crush to a paste, and wondering how you ever did without it.
NOTE: If you have fried shallots and fried garlic in your pantry, you can use them, rather than starting from scratch.
