Return to the roots: Try cooking in a clay pot

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If you go on a long drive, or take a drive out of a metropolis to spend a couple of days in the nearest beach town, or forest, would you like to have tea along the way in a plastic or paper cup? If you do, stop reading now.

If you are on a long train journey in winter and want to wrap your fingers around a steaming earthen cup of tea, read on. Read on, if you think earthen lamps are worth spending on in Diwali.

In that case you might be the one who is ready to experiment with the idea of cooking in a clay pot, an art long forgotten by all families of urban India. Many of us are open to the idea of decorating our home with terracotta, but none of us has ever tried to cook in a clay pot in our kitchen.

Back till the 1980s, many families used to store drinking water in earthen pots. Remember the science lesson in our school explaining why water in earthen pots remained cool in summer? Amidst the craze for PET bottles, it is rather foolish to try to locate a home where water is stored in earthen pots.

However, cooking in clay pots has some definite benefits and is worth a trial even in this age of microwaves, grills and online food delivery services.

The first benefit is that of slow cooking, which is another art that is lost in the age of breakneck speed. Cooking in earthen pots needs slow cooking. It retains the moisture of the food, preserves its taste and aroma and needs less oil, a compelling health advice given by most doctors.

Dieticians would tell us that clay pots are rich in content of magnesium, calcium, iron and sulphur — important nutrients for the human body.

Clay is porous and clay pots, which are covered with lids while cooking, create a moisture-laden environment inside that retains the flavour of the food.

Ask any chef specialising in the art of biryani making and he would tell you that meat is best cooked in earthen pots since the process of cooking helps it to retain tenderness for a longer time. The rice, too, cooks to perfection, retaining their separate entities and never turning sticky.

Dieticians also point out that clay pots are alkaline in nature due to the presence of calcium compounds and help reduce the acidic nature of most foods.

Unglazed cooking pots are still available in some markets and they are certainly far cheaper than the fancy metal utensils used in modern kitchens.

If you are still not convinced about the benefits of cooking in a clay pot, drop in an authentic biryani outlet and order dum biryani. It will arrive on your table in a clay pot sealed with dough. Remove the lining sealing the lid and remove the lid carefully. The first waft of the food inside will teach you the benefits more effectively than any lecture can do.

An appetising aroma is worth well over a thousand words.