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Still life, still in use
Inside three kitchens, we trace how utensils move through generations, meals, and memory
What is the right way to notice an object you’ve already seen too many times? I am walking around the house, half-working, half-avoiding it, when my eyes land on the topmost shelf in the kitchen. As most writers would agree, the urge to clean is strongest when there is work to postpone. I bring an extendable duster and go after the uruli that has made its home up there ever since we first lined the shelf with newspaper. Three-year-old headlines remain trapped underneath, and the surface is now festooned by cobweb wisps. The deadline is six hours away which feels like just enough time to bring the uruli down and give it a scrub. As I tilt it towards the light, I find my grandfather’s name inscribed on it. Worn-in, like a tattoo that has lived on the skin too long. The alphabets have the discipline of a typeface, every ka, the same in size, slant and shape. It feels halfway to becoming one of those Canva fonts, designers pull from handwritten lettering on Instagram, set to whatever trending audio is doing the rounds.
I wonder when he got this uruli. If it was bought for a function, that was momentous enough to require a mammoth vessel like this. Did my grandfather go to the store alone, or did someone else stand beside him, weighing options that all looked the same to me now. Did he bargain, draw a line somewhere, walk away and come back? Was this the one he had his heart set on or perhaps a second choice? Kitchens are full of objects like these that don’t ask to be looked at twice. They enter and exit your day and are mostly all about function and utility. But some sit through years, through relocations, through newer, shinier replacements. A silbatta worn down to the rhythm of other hands. A pan that has travelled more than the person using it. A pressure cooker that still whistles at the exact pitch it did thirty years ago.
It feels a little sad to think of a kitchen as just the sum of its appliances. There is always something in a kitchen that doesn’t belong to the present moment, and looks wise and slightly jaded, carrying within its fray, another way of doing things. Wondering how these objects continue to live alongside us, I spoke to three people who spend most of their time in the kitchen, about the one utensil that has their heart.
SANSKRITI BISHT
Food stylist and photographer, Sanskriti Bisht, cannot pin point when the ceramic plates first entered her memory only that they were around. “I think I noticed them only when I started getting into food styling,” she says. By then, the terms had changed. In her work, plates are meant to step back so the food can take over, but she loved how loud and demanding these were in contrast. “The ceramics were so unique and so busy, and the shape was so interesting unlike so many normal plates that I have seen,” she says. “It made me think outside of commercial shoots, and how much more value it can add as a story that goes beyond just making the food look good.”
The collection belongs to her mother. They were bought years ago in Tunisia, carried back in large plastic bags, carefully packed and somehow miraculously brought back without a crack. “I was eight then, I didn’t really value ceramics. But I remember how she wanted to remember these as keepsakes from her time there.”
Her mother only took them out when guests came, usually with her meat dishes, like they somehow commanded fanfare. Sanskriti prefers to use it less to preserve it more. If something were to happen to it, it wouldn’t be discarded, she tells me, “Feviquick is my best friend. Alternatively, making art out of this ceramic would be wonderful too. Oftentimes my mom transorms broken ceramics into planters.” The plates are still her mother’s, and at some point, they will move again. “Yes, of course,” she says, smiling, when asked if she’ll pass them on. “Not sure to whom.”
DAKSHA SALAM
In Daksha Salam’s memory, the pot has been sitting in the lower cupboards of his mother’s kitchen. “We had moved around quite a bit, but Assam was home for a long time, and that’s where I really became aware of it. It always stood out because of how pitch black it was. This deep, matte black that felt so different from everything else in the kitchen, which was mostly wood, steel, and lighter materials.” It is a Nungpi pot from Manipur, shaped by hand, usually by women, without a wheel. The clay is worked slowly, then smoothed with stone, then fired into that matte surface. “There’s something very grounding about it,” he says, “Growing up, it wasn’t used every day. It would mostly come out during festivals, especially Sajibu Cheiraoba, the Manipuri New Year. That’s when we’d make Uti, this comforting dal made with green peas and white peas. So I’ve always associated it with something a little special, something slower.”
The pot moves from his mother, to his sister, and now to him in Bangalore, where they share a kitchen. He doesn’t have one big backstory for it, only a scatter of smaller stories that go hand in hand. “I remember going to Ima Keithel in Manipur, seeing rows of women selling these pots, all made from their homes. I even tried buying a new set once when I visited, but somehow this particular one always feels different.” The nungi pot now holds a fixed place in his kitchen now, used often enough to lose its ceremonial distance. The last time was for his sister’s birthday. “I cooked Uti in it, the same way my mom used to.” Since then, it has also held soy braised pork, and a few other dishes that are new to its use. “It holds heat really beautifully, so even after you take it off the flame, it stays warm for a long time. That changes how things cook and rest.” There is wear now; chips, a bit of warping. “I don’t think I would ever replace it. If anything, I’d just keep adding to the collection. I actually even picked up a newer Nungpi pot recently and used it for one of my tablescapes, which felt like a nice extension of how these objects can live beyond just cooking. I also like the idea of having a full set of them, almost like a Le Creuset situation but our own version.”
TRESA FRANCIS
Tresa Francis is the founder of Coracle, a Bangalore-based restaurant that offers a range of hand-picked recipes inspired by her South Indian roots and heritage. And so, the meat mincer sits at the centre of her kitchen as of one of the more everyday inheritances. Tresa would have been seven or eight when she was first allowed to touch it. It belonged to her mother, and it was a backup, one of two kept for the same function. “She’s one of those people who has two backups to every appliance she owns. Mum used to mince her beef for the cutlets in it,” she says, “and she was always so particular about how and who uses it.” What stays with her is the way it was handled. “Everything,” she says, when asked what she remembers of her mother’s way with it. “How particular she is about how each thing is done, used, and how it has to be cleaned before returning it back to its station.”
It now lives inside an appliance cabinet and has moved with them from Kozhikode to Bangalore, settling into different kitchens, the only difference being that off late it comes out every alternate day to mince meat that goes on to become melt-in-your-mouth, slightly crisp-edged cutlets meant to be finished in two quick bites. The use of the mincer has become more distributed over time. Others use it now, under instruction, especially in the restaurant she works in. Taking a page from her mother’s book she says “I should probably get a backup,” she says. And ten years from now, she doesn’t imagine this one elsewhere. “Exactly where it is now,” she says. “In the kitchen I work in.”
At the dining table, the Nungpi pot still holds warmth long after the meal is served. Image courtesy, Daksha Salam
Some heirlooms stay useful long after they become sentimental. Image courtesy, shutterstock
Daksha Salam cooking with the Nungpi pot that has moved through his family’s kitchens for years. Image courtesy, Daksha Salam
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