[Aztlan] colander-type ceramic vessels

[Nick Hopkins]

These colanders are well-known ethnographically (at least up to the  
plastics age).  I think the original question was whether or not they  
have been excavated in a precolumbian context.

Nick Hopkins

On Mar 25, 2007, at 1:33 PM, Sharon Peters wrote:

>      I come at this list as a researcher/culinary instructor  
> specializing in
> traditional kitchens, especially those of Mexico and Mesoamerica.
>      That said, my reaction to the ceramic vessel with perforations  
> on the
> bottom, as opposed to the sides as the ceramic censers have, is  
> that it is
> for draining, most especially and likely draining nixtamalized corn  
> from the
> its alkali-laced processing bath.
>      I am more familiar with such vessels, known as pichanchas, on the
> Mexica/Aztec/Nahuatl side of the cultural line.  They resemble round
> "Kool-Aid" type pitchers, with a handle, but without the lip, and the
> spherical body is perforated all over, sometimes in a bit of a  
> pattern, to
> allow the 'nextli', or alkaline water drip out, prior to multiple  
> washings
> of the corn in fresh water to remove the 'pellejo'', or pellicle.  The
> vessel is utilized a second time to drain the corn just up from its  
> fresh
> water bath, so it is only moist, and not dripping, when deposited  
> onto the
> metate for grinding into masa.
>      While I cannot definitively state that the subject object is a  
> corn
> strainer, it does fit within a culinary use logic.  I fear that, at  
> times,
> the grandeur of the temples, the history and the occasional
> bordering-on-egomaniacal-puffery of the stelae tend to overshadow the
> considerably less grand, dully mundane, and totally unsexy items of  
> everyday
> life of  the majority.  And even the Lords had to eat - and did,  
> apparently,
> if the flood of chocolate and surfeit of tamales on the various  
> pots and
> murals indicate.  And no less a Mayanist than Michael Coe has  
> spoken often
> and long on his thoughts that the cylinder pots were vessels for  
> chocolate
> ... and had his talk fall on deaf or uninterested ears .... until  
> the Rio
> Azul stirrup jug came along, and several labs and Hershey's confirmed
> chemically what Coe had known all along.
>      Please, don't forget the kitchens ...
>
> Regards,
>
> Sharon Peters
> Sin Fronteras
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