Snapshots from Asia: Leaf Bowls and Terracotta Cups
In the bustling North Indian city of Kolkata, it seems ironic that the two things I’m most excited about (besides the mind boggling variety of street food) are probably also the most generic items to be found: leaf bowls and terracotta cups used by wallas (street hawkers) to contain yummy goodness.
These bowls and cups are disposable, biodegradable, ecofriendly, and—best of all—take the place of the nasty paper, plastic, foam, and foil stuff ubiquitous everywhere else.
The bowls are made from leaves that have been “pinned” together with twigs and dried in the sun, while the cups are “expertly thrown by potters at a rate of more than ten cups a minute.”
Called “matir bhar," the cup here is the bigger, 100 ml one used for water, while chai wallas (tea hawkers) dole out their daintier, one-ounce cousins. All day long, locals can be seen on the streets sipping on the sweet, spicy, milky brew… often accompanied by a dunkable bikkie on the side. Any time is tea time.
It used to be that a hole would be dug after a meal, with the used cups and leaves tossed in and covered with mud. This would eventually turn into a rich humus that could be used to fertilize crops. Urban living, however, means these cups and plates tend to end up as litter on the roadsides. While I know litter is litter, somehow, crumpled plastic just does not have the poetry that broken terracotta cups and shredded leaf bowls do. Especially when all that remains of the cups at the end of the day is red dust shimmering in the air.
About the author: Wan Yan Ling is an impoverished grad student and sourdough finger-crosser living in Rhode Island. She can usually be found in the kitchen procrastinating on "real work" or online tracking down obscure recipes. Ling thinks eating alone is no fun, and she still believes in hand-mixing.
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6 Comments:
Wow, if only we could replace our styrofoam with this, our enviroment would be so much better off!
Lilartist at 10:41AM on 02/04/08
Wow, The leaf bowls are a brilliant use of available materials.
Not so sure about the terracotta as a one time use item, I have read that it takes 12 times the power to fire a coffee cup than make Styrofoam cup- which is disappointing. I suspect that the firing would done with wood fired pit kilns- lots of sooty smoke and de-forestation being a pretty big concern in many parts of India
Xtevan at 11:58AM on 02/04/08
Are the terracotta fired or just dried?
OneEyedMan at 12:17PM on 02/04/08
On my recent trip to India, I noticed that the myriad cows enjoyed eating the leaf bowls that were scattered around food carts, as well. The cows eat those, they *ahem* digest and evacuate them, then the locals collect the dung, dry it out, and use it to fuel more cooking fires.
dwagner at 12:42PM on 02/04/08
Hmmm... from what I could make out, the cups are first dried in the sun, then brought into a warm room abutting the kiln that acts like an oven. The next day, the dried cups are stacked and laid sideways in a circular ring -- several layers deep. "Hay, straw, and slow-burning sawdust is filled in the gaps, with more fuel (straw) laid atop to keep it burning overnight. The whole structure (the kiln itself) is supported by bricks and looks like a small circular mound."
And we did see goats eating anything and everything!
onedaylingers at 1:13PM on 02/04/08
So we have every reason to think that the energy requirements of manufacture are not as high as conventional firing, even if are non-trivial.
OneEyedMan at 11:52AM on 02/06/08