Some notes on this video. Crisco is a brand name of vegetable shortening, it was not my first choice but I forgot to buy lard so stopped and bought what they had on hand. The tests at the end were not scientific and weren't meant to be, just trying to demonstrate how well the pots were sealed. I will do another video about sealing soon to bring this subject more up to date with the different options. In the meantime, if you are interested in a chemical sealant which will seal earthenware 100% and is food safe check out this video about Liquid Quartz - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Swf-tb2zIC8.html
Suggestion, try using Ghee to seal. It's much better than crisco. Its milk based, but cooked into just an oil. I've never had it go rancid and it's all natural if you can find a local farmer that will let you get some raw milk for the cream. 😉
I know I'm late but maybe you'll find this useful in the future. An easier and more accurate way of conducting the test would to just measure the weight with water once you pour it in, and then measure the weight after the hour you waited 😅 Just found your channel, thanks for the "clay is just small dirt" video(finding wild clay) , I needed that
I am chef, cooked in Mexico and India with First Nation friends. The more you cook in a clay pot , the more it builds a patina. Don’t scrub aggressively when you wash the pot. Traditionally plant fibers like grass pads or corn cob are used to clean gently and preserve the patina. The first time you cook with a new clay pot, immerse it overnight in water before you cook , that initial rehydration of the raw ceramic will help. Use your clay pots regularly , they are functional objects that give a unique flavour to food, they are not meant to be “artifacts “😀
@@What2B that's a great comparison if you think about it. Why is cast iron considered "gourmet" but earthenware is somehow "not food-safe?" Both have a built up seasoning and are porous.
@@hiddenmutant I think the difference is your cast iron is presumably gonna be exposed to intense heat that will kill anything living inside your food, and this would be done everytime you use it. A clay jug, pot, or whatever could also be used with heat, but not necessarily. So if someone used it for milk, or something sugary, pathogens and mold could build up.
Omg, the whole truth! I've been cooking with clay pots my entire life (since back home in Nigeria) and the only time I've been in the hospital was to have my babies. I REALLY wondered why Africans were hardly affected by the Corona virus and Americans were, the studies weren't wrong - over sanitization. Earthen ware are totally safe to cook with and the more you cook with them the better they get. People have been doing it for centuries.
My grandfather and my father were farmers and they had a water clay pitcher, 5 liter, that they carried to the field. The pitchers were purposely not glazed because the porosity of the clay allow the water to evaporate and that cools the water in the pitcher (natural refrigeration).
Yes, that was a common way to keep water cool around here back in my grandparent's time. My mom has told me how when she was a girl everybody in Tucson had an earthenware jug of water for keeping drinking water cool. In that case you would want it to weep and sealing the pot would be counterproductive.
I have a terracotta clay baking dish that has been seasoned with oil the same way I seal my cast iron pans. I have been cooking in it for 30 years. I cook chicken with tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and a sweet pepper paste. Never had it leak.
@@barbarajohnson79 I was thinking the same thing. In principal its not different than a cast iron skillet. Don't need high heat. Just a default preheat on a typical American oven should be plenty.
The use of unsealed earthenware/pottery in cooking is something that can be found all over the world. In Germany you’ll find the Römertopf, which basically is an unglazed pot with a lid. You soak it in water before using it to avoid it cracking during the cooking process in the oven. The idea is that the porosity is actually a desirable thing and over time, the Römertopf gets seasoned and the quality of the food made in it improves. To clean it, scouring with salt and water is what my grandmother would advocate, and then allowing it to dry completely before storing it away.
That's great, thanks for sharing. I have heard from people all over the world who cook in unglazed pottery, I did not know that Germany had anything like that.
after watching this I started getting recommendations from youtube for videos of people who use earthenware pots as a standard part of everyday cooking. And vids of those people seasoning their pots. I would recommend anyone interested in this idea to have a look for those vids. Just put "seasoning clay pots for cooking" into the search and you'll get tons. This isn't some lost skill of our ancestors we have to rediscover through trial and error. There are living breathing cultures where this is current extant knowledge.
Amazing how removed those of us in developed countries are from that but how other parts of the world still continue in there old ways. We can learn so much from that way of life.
One point I didn't see in other comments is related to tea. In Yunnan China, porous clay pots are prized because they absorb the flavor of the tea over time. I've paid hundreds of dollars for some of these hand made pots because they really do improve the tea when aged. I'm excited about making my own teaware with your methods to see how it works with puerh tea.
@@ashleyrothn313 well that is why English people NEVER wash their teapot with soap or dishwasher...they always just rinse it in hot water to clean it because to them its blasphemous to wash a tea pot because it will ruined the taste of your tea. the English learned this from the Chinese when they were there having a fit with them about tea xD. Yup teapot is just for tea in china you do not use it for other beverage because it will absorbed the tea taste and after a while the teapot will be season with the taste of the tea and the Chinese price it.
Very interesting! Thanks, Andy. During the time I spent in India, I ate a lot of veggie food cooked on unglazed mud pots and they tasted delicious. They use a combination of starch and oil to 'season' the pots before using them. They soak the pots in rice water for 3 days, changing the water every day; then seal them with coconut oil on a low fire until the pots absorb the oil and get a shiny surface. I was curious and did some research. Check this lady here, she explains the whole method: Mommy's kitchen by Nisha Thaju Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. I really like your videos. :)
Food cooked in clay pots have a special taste. Still used in many parts world. These pots have comeback as earthenware, kind of pricey, but worth the money.
In south India we also heat the pots on high heat by burning dry leaves and then take out the pot and rub it (while still hot) inside and out with leaves which are a bit slimy, like spinach or leaves from the cashew tree. It gives a beautiful appearance to the pot with blotches of black and green and it's also sealed and ready to cook in. Of course the leaves have to be non toxic. One con is that if we need one pot we need to buy at least two as sometimes pieces from the lip of the pot will break and fly off at high speed so eye protection is also recommended.
In Colombia, they make earthenware pottery that is used for cooking. It's sealed with very fine terra cotta slip which is burnished and then the pots are fired in saggars in woodburning earthen kilns. The saggars are pulled out while still hot, and filled with straw, which burns and turns the pottery black. This pottery can be used in ovens and even over direct flames without cracking. It ends up looking like cast iron. The burnishing with terra sigilata supposedly makes it nonporous.
I know that in El Salvador clay "comales" (griddles) are "cured" with "cal" (calcium hydroxide), the same stuff used in the process of nixtamalization of maize. A substitute is wood ashes. A paste is made with water and the "comal" is coated, the following day it is washed with water. BTW, my ancestors have lived to early 90's and some just past 100, all grew up using unglazed earthenware cooking utensils and not just metal ones. There are dishes that when cooked in a well seasoned earthenware "cazuela" and by seasoned I mean an old cazuela that has been used many many times, those dishes taste heavenly. Great video, you have gained a subscriber.
@@AncientPottery we also fire at very very low temps to avoid any vessel cracking when used over open flames.... this is also typical of the early American native and settlers I imagine... also there are significant health benefits to this method as it increases mineral intake
@@christopheplumm2849 I am curious about the carbon intake...which can cause cancer. Just starting pottery and finding my way. Any source you can recommend about the carbon?
Isn't that the same as seasoning a cast iron pan? You add oil, heat it up and the oil builds a Polymere thing ( I can't explain it very well) but it is bonded on a molecular level with the vessel. And that should be food safe.
That is a great channel, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. in my country Turkey, we traditionally seal the unglazed cookware with liquid oil. You put about half a cup of olive oil (or sunflower oil, whatever you have in the kitchen) and fill the rest of the pot with water. You boil the water / oil mixture on stovetop for like 10 minutes and it is ready to be used in the oven or on stovetop. Everytime you cook food in it, first you brush liquid oil in the pot so it makes a thin lining. This is how we use it and the producers (small families create these pottery) warn you if you do not “temper” it with oil, the pot can break. I think it works, because i still use the pot i bought in 2004.
40 years ago when staying at the Research museum in Denmark I was told by the potter that she sealed her pots by using milk. It was soaked overnight then poured out and then the pot was baked in the oven with the bread. The black pots seemed almost as dry as glazed pots. No smell from them as all the milk solids had changed.
I will probably never do pottery but since I discovered your channel I cannot stop watching. You come across as a normal person, I may meet somewhere, who is just genuinely enthusiastic about sharing their passion and there is something so human and comforting about it. So refreshing among too many channel that are over-edited to be quirky, where the format since more important than the content.
I use a wash of soda ash which can be applied to bone dry greenware or bisqueware to seal low-fire pottery. Rhonda Willers book on terra sigillata goes over the proces. In short you dissolve 1 part soda to between 3 and 6 parts very hot water and brush on. Thanks for all the passion and knowledge you share, Andy. You're an inspiration to so many people.
Thanks, Catherine B. I am looking for low-fire glazes that are readily-available in the home, and wonder if you've come across any more goodies like this. Cheers from Japan.
@@mikeu5380 When I have sealed metal to prevent rust, I used cooking oils high in unsaturated fat like flax, walnut, or perilla oil. I put on the thinnest coating I can and heat it until the oil starts to smoke, generally 450-500 F/ 230-260 C. When the oil stops smoking entirely, I put on another coat and repeat, for 7 total coats. The heat turns the oil into glass, and it will be black even if you do this in an electric oven.
So it looks like burnishing the pots really helped as well as the oil. Thank you for doing this test! I also liked that you pointed out how our ancestors ate food cooked and stored in unglazed, wood-fired pottery for millennia and somehow survived! So true! I always roll my eyes when I hear people talk about how "poisonous" wood-fired pottery is because of the ash and chemistry of firing. Such a load of horse apples!
I seal with 50/50 beeswax-Olive oil food safe and natural for my az pre history style earthware I make. I actually learned most of the pre required learning from this channel then experiment. Thanks Andy. ,
Sounds like you have a good system that works. I really do like using oils to seal, the little bowl I sealed with Crisco in this video is still holding up great, the surface is like teflon. Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@AncientPottery thank you for helping me and others learn an art form. Keep up the oddity within an art to inspire experimenting. I'm experimenting with crushing stones, crystals, metal ore, metal powders, glass, quartz, emerald, jasper, silicas in clay to see reactions. Maybe high potassium water for my clay body. Simple salt water or other variables. EXPERIMENTING BABY.
@@ashleyrothn313 eating and drinking not cooking. It seems like cookware seals itself in my experience. But if you lookup beeswax sealing water gords it's the same principle but the wax is IN the fired clay. I figured this method by making candle holders that sucked up wax over use , then noticed they were sealed eventually unable to suck any more beeswax...water tight. Then I heated to drip off any excess then STILL water tight..cookware seamed to seal with food oil, natrualy with uses over time. Cook on coal not fire. All my opinions.....
Andy I love you your videos I'm Cherokee and I done pottery for twenty years but I find something new everytime I've watched;you should try pine pitch the coastal tribes in n.c.used that for their pots it works also some of the early Cherokee potters said after they eat corn they dried it in the sun and put it in their pottery they called it black ware I think it more anut creating carbon that's suppose to water proof the pottery same with bear grease you apply it put in the fire it creates carbon black color but that's what water proofs your pottery hope this helps.firewolf.
Yes! The area I’m from had been populated by Cherokee and the red clay was sealed with pine pitch especially for storing grains. There is a very nice but small museum on the GA/TN state line called Red Clay State Park. I’ve moved a couple of years ago but they might be a good resource. If you visit N GA it’s worth a visit!! It was one of the starting points of the Trail of Tears.
The starch method is used by both Americans and Asians. Comales are sealed with "cal" and wood/corn ashes and water. The clay cazuelas are cured with salt and masa too, then a nonstick surface made by lard like cast iron. My Japanese donabe and Korean dolsot both had instructions to seal or cure with rice paste and " burning" sesame oil. I love Earthenware and this channel is awesome.
I have a tagine that I sealed by cooking coconut oil and salt in it for an hour over medium heat. The bottom of the tagine now has an absolutely shiny black patina in it.
Pine sap was used to make waterproofing by native people and when heated turns into a liquid but also permeates into the pots and glass like substance when cool.
@@beadingbusily pine sap was used in Greek and Egyptian pottery for waterproofing wine vessels. Although it's supposed that it did impart a flavor to the wine. Technically bow rosin is made from tree sap. It's made by heating the sap until it separates from the turpentine and volatile liquids forming underneath. It's not sticky as one would think.
@@brandengillette7794 Oh! Resourceful! I'm always inspired by the resourcefulness and creativity of people from long before now. And also people currently.
I cook recipes in clay pots. I sealed the first time with sunflower oil or with fet from pork. But Before of that, i put the pot in water for 2-3 hours. I use aromatic herbs too. I love my pots. The food is delicious and its healthy. My pots come from Perú, Morroko and Turkey. But i tryed to make one by myself too 😊I made a video with my process to seal that pot. But its in Spanish language ❤ Lovely Greetings from Germany where i am living. I am a Peruvian lady. Your new follower and i am learning a lot from you. Thanks a lot!!! ❤( And Sorry if my English is very bad 😅)
Milk sealing seems to be a candidate for sealing techniques used in Europe, based upon lipid analysis of the fabrics from various periods. Either the vessels analysed where used for milk storage and then abandoned after the absorbed fats started going off, or they had a way of stabilising the milk. At the Sweet Track, a Carinated Bowl was found with a carbonised exterior residue which has been interpreted as a charred resin or paint. I'm currently planning to see if it could be a charred fat or oil used for sealing with a few experiments.
From my “experience” I’m no expert, also from what I know eating from earthenware it’s fine and safe, just like you said be mindful. My great grandfather lived until 102 thereabouts before he died, his wife to about 97, they even pickle vegetables and meats in them.
A shoe shaped pot will braise nicely if buried in coals. Most clay pots will acomplish this. I have seen food cooked in shoe shape pots in the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca. The ‘’ toe’’ part was placed in the coals under the flat clay metate used for cooking tortillas and roasting vegetables. The opening of the pot was next to the rim allowing to easily stir the food during cooking. The metate rests on three stones above the coals, it keeps the heat in and is a kind of oven. A very fuel economical way of cooking. I have seen three of these pots cooking at once around a metate. It allows to braise and cook at the same time. The original kitchen range with an oven and stovetop ! The cook who showed us this was the ceramist who made these pots. The meal and Zapotec hospitality were outstanding.
Many of the old pots were sealed by putting water in them about half way , the water would leech the minerals out to the surface after a few days. I like to use corn oil on the inside of some of mine. Also Pine needles and warm water, , let it soak and the pitch will coat it a bit. Or yes the carbon fire on the inside is pretty good!!! Great video! I love AZ, you can just start a fire anywhere it seems, not California! 😜
Hi Andy, I appreciate your researches and videos a lot. Just my two cents on how to get an idea about absorption: I'd weight the pots before and after soaking them, and then calculate the absorption rate by a quotient. This way you can really compare the results. Also I'd keep in mind that a big pot would absorb more water because it has a bigger surface for absorption: that's why I think your shoe pot absorbed a bigger amount of water. Andy from Italy here, best greetings
Thanks for that idea. I'm afraid that is way to sciencey for me, I'll let you make that video. If you do I promise to watch it and like it and comment on it and share it with my audience.
@@AncientPottery I found your channel few days ago and can't stop watching! 🙂 As probably many people have said, you're an excellent teacher. There is high chance that you've infected me... ;-) At least I have a plan to dig some clay on my property and test it. Regarding measurements - I was also thinking first why not use just a small kitchen scale to estimate the water loss either in mass or volume (because 1 gram of water is 1 cm^3 is 1 millilitre) but now in this video I guess I figured out: things are (much?) more complicated with non-metric units.
@@tonisee2 if I cared about exactly how much water was lost, but I don’t. I just wanted a rough comparison of how well they were sealed. It would have been good to have tested them both before and after sealing too, but again. I wasn’t going for science and honestly the comparison was an afterthought. Thanks.
Thanks Andy, you appear to be man after my own heart. I am a potter in the UK and have fallen in love with primitive earthernware, probably because I grew up in Africa. My commercial ware is fired in a kiln for convenience but is mainly finished without glaze. I shall be watching your channel with interest - and encouraged by your video, hope to cook with earthernware as well.
really enjoyed this, its very rare to see someone actually use the pots they made let alone go through an experimental process . Thank you for the time u put in to your videos and for sharing your knowledge
I am so happy that I’ve found your channel recently. I’ve always wanted to try making pottery but I’ve assumed I couldn’t without a kiln. I’m super keen to try now. And you present your videos in such a great way that is easy for absolutely anyone to understand. Thanks!
Years ago I watched a doc that showed natural salt being tossed into the make shift kiln during the firing to glaze the item. I have clay pots seal and unsealed and I love them. I have enjoyed your videos. Very interesting.
Awesome video Andy! I'll need to seal my primitive pottery a bit more to really seal it. I sealed mine with just one coat of coconut oil on the inside only and it worked pretty well, but it still seemed to lose a little bit of water when I cooked in it. I'll reseal it with multiple coats of fat on both the inside and outside like you did. thanks so much for this video!
I would try sealing a clay cooking pot the same way cast iron is seasoned--by putting on a drying oil [flaxseed is best, but the indigenous people had sunflowers as an oil plant, not flax] and subjecting the object to MODERATELY high heat for twenty minutes or more. On iron, the oil will actually polymerise to an impervious hard coating if you get the time and temperature and type of oil [it has to be a drying oil--walnut or soy oil would also work] right. I don't see any reason it wouldn't also work for clay.
@@sarahgracesings if you look up oils appropriate for "seasoning" cast iron or carbon steel, that's probably what you want. virgin coconut oil and virgin olive oil has a pretty low smoke point so I wouldn't say it would be a good candidate (more of the oil would vaporize than an oil with higher smoke point would), but a highly refined product might do a bit better (most people don't use highly refined oils for a "health" benefit). another good thing to note is that seasoning "recipes" often call for repeating the process to cultivate thicker layering of polymers. edit: after the seasoning process the vessel isn't going to taste like the oil used, if that's why you were asking about coconut oil
So happy to have found your channel. It is nice to see someone preserving this knowledge. When I lived in the Ecuatorial Andes I was taught to rub ripe plantains all over a new vessel inside and out and then warm it near a fire. I suppose that would be a starch seal. It always seamed to work well.
Thank you 😊❤️ andy.y uncle's name was Andy...he was a Farmer here in Fresno CA. Owed hundred s of Acer's of Land..farmed 🍇 grapeshave fun making your earthware pots...
Thank you again , I’ve drank my share of water out of a earthen water canteen on the Ranch, you give us good stuff to know as we learn more & more about pottery building !
Oh mate you are a wonderful teacher! I’m amused. All of the information and clear explanations just make me speechless. I love this channel already, what a gem did I manage to find today! You’ve earned a new subscriber and probably a couple more likes :D I’m so proud of you and your work
Great experiment, my kind of research. I was waiting for you to cook some corn meal cakes in your "oiled" bowl. I would think that cooking and cooking day after day in a container it would really build up a good seasoning. thank you for doing this for all of us.
What a great video. I like your way of teaching as you clearly tell us what you’ve don without all the added verbiage. Thank you so much. I just got a lot of clay I found here in Georgia or actually my boyfriend Whois a well driller found some great and brought me home a bucket so I would love a video on what to do with found earth clay.
@@AncientPottery I’ve been checking all of your videos out and love your easy to learn approach. I hope you become a student before long. I’m really excited about learning all I can.
@@sheniesims7618 Maybe your bf would be willing to sell some of that good quality driller clay to us. Lucky you to have such a thoughtful bf to bring on home a bucket of some! That's better than flowers!💐 I'm mildly jealous! 🥰☺
People only know what they know, it's too bad they judge what they do not know so quickly. Most potters today learn twice-fired glaze ware and are quite attached to that process. That does not mean that this is the only way to make pottery, nor is it necessarily the best, it is just one way. There is no right and wrong answers in pottery, just many different ways to work.
Hey Andy there is the Asian way of sealing and detoxifying the clay vessels. When they come out of the kiln, and still hot…..add a mixture of barley powder/yoghurt whey. The liquidy whey/barley powder is poured in the still hot just fired pot and it will bubble until the pot cools down. Then simply discard the whey/barley mix (compost or garden).
The grease seems to be like seasoning cast iron. A pitch or bees wax would burn off or melt, but if you mixed the grease with charcoal or even just work charcoal around the inside pores. It would hold up to the heat and even be a little antibacterial.
Hey again. My husband and I teach early trades, as I have mentioned I do glazed 18th century pottery, but my husband does wooden bowls hand turned on a treadle lathe. People constantly ask him if eating out of unfinished wooden bowls is safe. Wood as we know is pourous, but for centuries people ate and drank out of wooden bowls. The key is to dry them thouroughly after using. Some people suggest oiling them, but salad and olive oil can sour, he just uses food grade linseed oil. Also we encourage people to use wooden cutting boards because bacteria gets trapped in plastic cutting boards and will fester because it does not dry, whereas wood cutting boards dry any food particles and can be brushed off later. I wonder if linseed oil would work on pottery? Thank you for this research. As a potter, I always assumed that cooking use will eventually seal the pot, and we eat and drink from them long before they have a chance to leak and sweat much. Thanks for clearing this up.
Flaxseed is the same as linseed oil. food grade flaxseed can be bought in the grocery store and has a low smoke point and will polymerize at temps around 500 degrees.
This has been very useful! I have been subscribed to your channel for a while now and all of your videos are pure gold! Thank you for your efforts into sharing this amazing information. ❤️
I used to cook in a terracotta casserole pot with a lid that you had to soak in water first for an hour. Then I'd put a chicken in it with some veggies and maybe a little water and put it in the oven. It was really nice. Cleaning it after was tricky, but it worked great.
During my year in Brazil back in 1965, the natives were happy to use a clay ware constructed such as to weep the upper reservoir into the sealed bottom reservoir which was claimed to then be free from amebic dysentery issues. As americans we weren't convinced this was a wise thing to do, but I saw dozens of the things in many places suggesting they were popular and used a great deal. The exact construction wasn't explained and 5th grader would likely not remember any of the finer points anyway. But as to sealing I would think boiled linseed oil is the choice to try at least once. It works so well with oil based paints because boiling it activates the molecules in such a manner that they will then oxidize and polymerize with each other creating a water proof membrane. Almost on par with an epoxy covering without the exotic chemicals perhaps. It's still chemistry of course, but perhaps more appealing to the hardheaded organic types. I would think it best to treat when the earthenware is as warm as possible in order to soak up as much as possible, turn upside down to let it drain out totally and oxidize until it doesn't smell like linseed oil anymore and give it some tests, both for taste and water loss.
I have had others suggest linseed oil. I haven't tried it yet but I would think that it would be perfect for eating and drinking vessels but I wonder if it might not be so great in a cooking pot as the heat may soften that oil and you wouldn't want to eat it.
Agreed, distinction is very important here, do NOT use linseed oil, ONLY boiled linseed oil - if it doesn't say boiled on the can at the hardware store you might as well use used motor engine oil as that too will not polymerize. The oxidation phase changes it from a standard organic understanding of an oil into a sheet of hard spar varnish within/throughout the clay matrix, the same one you are attempting to seal up. Yes, the stench of linseed oil will remain long after the oil is dry to the touch and it's still oxidizing, it might be quite repugnant when enhanced by heating too, possibly rendering the vessel unusable for cooking. Once oxidized, it's not turning back into oil, only way to get it out is by further and total oxidization by very high heat likely to ruin the pottery itself. Another possibility is genuine spar varnish as it is used on electrical motor windings in both the armature and stator and then baked in an oven to cure out. Once cured, it holds each wire solid to the mass of other wires preventing vibration which could cause eventual failure. A similar substance is used on bare copper "magnet" wire to make it suitable for the windings of coils, etc., in the first place. End temperature is usually a couple of hours at 500 F degrees. But again it might pollute the food with an odor and/or taste that is objectionable.
I just stumbled onto your channel and I love it! I love to learn how people were making things and lived in ancient times. This comment section is also full of awesome information. I want to add a bit by saying that where you get your clay is important, as it can contain chemical additives or, for wild clay, pesticides/other chemicals from agriculture or urban areas. If things can seep in the vessel, things can also seep out, especially with heat.
That's so cool. I was looking for that kind of content a year ago. Glad you finally answered that question. Now we know how it looks and how well it works. I like the look to be honest.
N México the have different methods of doing it. 1) soaking for 24hrs under water,.2) boiling water with lime rock,(also use to cool corn for masa.3) rubbing garlic fresh garlic inside and outside. 4) boiling water with rock salt. I’ve only use used method 1 & 2 they both work good on my clay pots.
That's right. Except of course that the seasoning on cast iron it completely on the outside while with earthenware it is inside the vessel walls. But the principle is the same.
@@AncientPottery very true! My grandmother told me it "kept it seasoned" and that it wouldn't rust or get contaminates. I'm a nurse now... and lots of years of physical anthropology and human physiology in between... but I still understand the core of what she was saying. It formed a protective barrier. And I am going to be clay-gathering and pot-forming and outdoor firing 🔥 Because you and Tony Soares taught me how! I'm grateful for that connection to our past and the practical application you are making of it. It's fascinating and important work. I'm a big fan!
Yup, the not-sealing is also an advantage in some cases. I am here because I want to make an “olla” - a vessel buried near garden plants to slowly leach out water at root level, which is often better than blasting the top roots with a hose. Or others said earthernware pots were used as early cooling, slowly releasing the water to air in a room, etc.
I thought bees wax maybe a contender as a good seal for pottery. I love these videos, thank you, I have some wild clay I made from my own garden. onward to making a pot now, with your advice.
Yes some people have suggested bees wax but I have not experimented with it. I feel that like some other things bees wax might not work well in a cooking pot as it is flammable and can liquify and drain out of the pot. Thanks for watching.
Great video, really got my mind buzzing! The method of sealing the pottery using fat is very similar to the process of seasoning a cast-iron skillet. The process of burning fats onto and into the pores of a pot and a cast iron pan build up thin polymer layers that over time can in fact entirely seal pottery make them food-safe. I could easily see this emerging over time the same way seasoning skillets emerged over time. By repeatedly heating up the pottery and earthenware to sterilize them, naturally greasy foods would gradually coat plates and bowls and maybe slowly turn rancid. Heat them up to cleanse them in fire turns the fats to polymer layers. Over dozens of uses thick coatings would gradually build up creating increasingly more effective seals (and in turn low-stick surfaces.) Eventually that became the norm for cast-iron cookery, and I bet something similar would have also occurred through earthenware! Super cool! Using crisco was probably a great little accident. Vegetable based oils seem to have better rates of polymerization than animal based fats. If you wanted to really leverage this in the future, burn more oils onto each pot, heat them until all of the oil stops smoking, and allow to slowly cool and cure into the pores of the pottery. Regarding the shoe pot, I suspect some of the difference we saw in water loss was due to the water's surface larger area within the pot (both water to air surface and water to pot surface contact,) that increased the amount of water lost to absorption and vapor.
Here's an idea for sealing the pot using a natural material: if you use flax seed oil, spike oil, or walnut oil, those oils should completely seal the clay. All three of these oils are used as varnishes because the oil cross-links and cures into a solid. So if you use flax or walnut on unglazed clay pottery, it should do the same as it does on wood: the oil soaks into the pores, then cross-links to form a varnish. If you're going to use these on pottery that will come in contact with food, avoid using the kind used for varnishing furniture, since those often contain catalyst minerals which are not food safe. Also, if using walnut oil that you buy from the market, check to make sure it doesn't have added vitamin E, which is an antioxidant. Antioxidants interfere with oxidation, but it is precisely oxidation that initiates the curing process that causes the oil molecules to cross-link. Walnut oil in particular is a popular finishing oil for wooden salad bowls, and would be the one I think is best suited for this application. Would you try these oils on some pottery vessels, with and without heating? When heating, there are two possible ways: let the oil cure into a varnish before heating it until it blackens, or heat it without waiting for it to cure. Maybe the heat will accelerate the curing process. I'm curious to see what these natural varnish oils would do to unglazed pottery. I suspect they would perform much better than Crisco. Since they fully cross-link to form a polymer, they should, in theory, provide the best sealing performance.
I don't know how well it would work for pottery, but the woodworker in me says to just throw a few coats of shellac on that. As long as you're not subjecting it to any solvents like alcohol, I'd expect that to work reasonably well.
Nice! I've always wondered how the ancients managed to make porous clay vessels suitable for cooking. The fat method actually sounds and looks almost identical to how cast-iron is sealed to this day, interestingly enough. (Usually created using vegetable-based oils, But fats like bacon or lard can and were also often used.) Smear oils/fats on in a thin layer, and bring the vessel up to a temperature where it starts to smoke a bit. Keep it there for about 10 minutes or so, so that the oils polymerize into a non-stick substance. (Much like how clay permanently changes when fired). Repeat as necessary. Never thought the same exact process would also apply to unglazed clay pots :) You could try smearing the grease onto the hot vessel using a thickly folded section of paper towel or cloth of some sort. The extra layers of insulation afforded by wadding it up should save time with the heating/cooling cycles between applications :)
HipposHateWater, I love your name! One of my favorite random sayings is, "Hippos never look up." They really don't. You could hide on a big boulder or in a tree from one if you wanted to. 😁
I don't know if it was mentioned already, but this reminds me of seasoning cast iron. With oil what you do with cast iron is heated to the smoke point which then starts polymerizing the oil, basically turning it into a form of plastic coating. There's a sweet spot before you actually burn the oil as a flame.
When I forged steel I used a similar method to rustproof jewelry and blades. Heat up to a nice gold (not glowing), dump in oil. Makes a bit of a flame you have to extinguish after, but it makes for a very reliable coating that lasts for years on jewelry
Andrew, great video, big thx for sharing. Firstly, we want to say, we admire your work. In our work, we focus on our local traditions by replicating ancient food concepts, but this is no barrier in being fascinated with other cultures.The international & multicultural context is crucial to catch the specifics of the local concepts. We all share one human culture, after all, and yet we differ in beautiful ways. 🟢 Three thoughts had we & we want to share it too, if you don't mind. But we leave one (about food safety and microbial laboratory tests of ancient pottery) for the next comment, not to make this one any longer / it's so long anyway, sorry:) 🟢 1. The shoe pot - what an interesting shape! We'll definitely watch you vid about it. We just had a thought, that when the ratio cornmeal/water is low and the corn-soup is thin, the whole corn is pushed up by boiling "bubbles" and goes up to the top leaving more water bottom down. So actually not much starch down there. Perhaps making the ratio higher and making the soup thicker by adding more cornmeal would keep more corn=starch at the bottom and then it would seal the lower part better. What do you think about it? 🟢 2. Medieval and ancient sealing method from our area, Slavic Poland, was by popping a bowl overall into a big pot of boiling 'żur' (zhur). #Żur (or diminuitive #żurek ) is one of the most ancient soups of Slavonic area. It is made of lactofermented rye ('zakwas' = sourdough), seasoned with herbs (garlic & mayoran) and dominantly with any local fat, depending on era & location: boar, deer or pig lard, butter, poppy, hemp or flax oil. So this was sort of 2in1, in terms of the methods you described. Transfering it into the native American experience, it would be probably using fattened cornmeal soup for this purpose, wouldn't it? 🟢 All the best, Greetings from Poland 🇵🇱 Anna, Marek, Tomasz, Monika
"We all share one human culture, after all, and yet we differ in beautiful ways." - I couldn't agree more. Much love and respect to my friends doing similar work in Europe and elsewhere. 1. perhaps this is so. Maybe allowing the cornmeal water to boil away without burning would be helpful. 2. Awesome info. yes that makes sense. Thanks so much for these thoughtful comments.
Another method used in Gujarat is applying raw lac just after the pot is withdrawn from the fire. Pots turn out to be beautiful as well and it's safety is tested by labs in India.
Interesting that it also produces a crimson dye, like cochineal insects. They are also a scale bug. But when I looked up both, they seem to have a different acid that produces the coloration.
