Earthenware Cooking: Japan | Greece

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haven't yet, please give us a five star review. Okay, now on to today's show. You know, when we think about food origins, often we think about the movement of people, plants, animals, and ideas, But the study of humans would be an incomplete one without the study of clay and ceramic vessels one of human kind's earliest and most important inventions. These fragments of earth, when listened to attentively, are clues to the past. What is the type or quality of material used?

What was the technology? Was it more like a sculpture or formed on a wheel? What can these fragments and particles tell us about its uses? If pottery is a conversation with past, archaeologists are our interpreters. Today we're talking to a whisper of ancient history, culinary archaeologist jerre Lynn Morrison. Jery Lynn has a PhD in archaeology specializing in the

ancient cooking vessels of crete. And after we talk to jey Lynn, we will be talking to Nyoko take more about the miracle of Donabe, the ceramic pot that is one of the oldest in Japan. Nyoko is a food and drink expert. She is also the author of the Fantastic Donabe Cookbook, an owner of Toro Kitchen in Los Angeles, a purveyor of fine Japanese ceramic cookware. But first up we go to the dungeons of crete greased to talk

Bronze age ceramics with Jelyn Morrison. Yeah, I mean I just recently took the title of culinary archaeologist for this one hotel that I'm working at, because that's the title right there. Okay, there we go, because they kept calling me an archaeologist. But here in Greece that means that you're excavating on the property so that people can build. And I was like, no, guys, you guys can't call

me that. Everyone's confusing the whole thing. So like, you know, so, yeah, so we came up with that to be more specific, you know, for when I was there doing presentations. And I think it works pretty well. I think so too, So that's what we'll say. And an enviable or aspirational job title for sure. Good job. Yeah it sounds a little overinflated sometimes, but you know, no, it's right on

target for you. Welcome to Point of Origin. Today. We are talking pottery, both in traditions and cooking methodol gs, and we are very excited to have with us on the line from Crete in Greece. Jerylyn Morrison, who is a culinary archaeologist who will be talking to us about, among other things, some of the pottery traditions and crete thank you so much for joining us today. On point

of origin. Sojerlyn, you were kind of fixating on this title that you have of culinary archaeologists, but it is in some ways a descriptive term for the work you do. But can you tell us in your own words what kind of work you do and how you how you think about the work that you're doing. Yeah. Absolutely, Basically

what I do is um. I have a very strong art background, particularly in the strama arts and pottery, and I use that in conjunction with a lot of other research in anthropology and archaeology to talk about ancient cooking practices and food in a g and Bronze Age in particular, and so that encompasses create all the neighboring islands, a

little bit of Anatolia and the Greek mainland. I use a variety of different types of sources to kind of look about what people were eating, how they were cooking, and then kind of why to try to put that into some sort of anthropological context, to kind of talk about basically what people were doing every day in the world back in the day, back in the Bronze Age. Well, in wet Stone parlance, we would call you an origin forager, so we can. And what is it about this region

the Aegean that garnered your attention? Yeah, I kind of came here serendipitously. I was down originally down in the America's down in Guatemala and Mexico for several years in the late nineties, and there was a civil war going on and it was really quite too dangerous to be there anymore. And I had phoned a friend of mine who was an archaeologist and creed Jennifer Moody, and she kept saying, you know, you just have to come over here and just experience it. And I said, Okay, I'll

do it. I'll do it. So I did, and I really just fell in love with it. And I think, you know, the moment I stepped off the plane, I really felt at home. And you know, since then, I feel like, you know, it's a world of a of a lot of contrast. You know, the landscape is very contrasting without like the stark mountains and the sea. You know, you're in a lot of you know, the geopolitical area

over here is super rich. It's old. You know, the whole origins between the neat Near East and Europe and then Western civilization is here, so you know, the whole scope is just really different than what I grew up with. And I just I really love that. M HM. And your specialty is Minoan civilization. Can you say a little bit more about how Manoan called sure plays into your work. That's kind of a time period that's super dramatic because we have the theory and eruption which has happened. There's

a lot of trading going on. The Minoan civilization is rebuilding. There's a lot of different ideas about what's happening with the economy, what's happening with the political structure between the old palaces and the new palaces, you know, plus a lot of different influences from the Greek mainland, from the Mycenaean culture. So you know, most of the time what we do in archaeology and in history is we study these big topics like warfare or trade or you know,

mass migration. And what's nice about cooking and about food is that you can kind of study the household level, and so that's what I'm most interested in. And then once you can look at that, you can kind of branch out, because of course food is also influencing farming and trading, and sometimes you also see movements of people on that. Absolutely yeah. We so often say that the study of food isle the study of the movement of people and plants, so the migration aspect is super resident

with us as well. From a more macro view, Create is its own an island into itself. For people who have not been to Greece or are not clear on the distinction between Crete and the mainland Greece, can you say more about kind of culturally and geographically what some of those differences aren't Oh? Yeah, absolutely, Create is a very special island, even in the Aegean because if you can imagine for those in the United States, like the perimeter is about the size of long island, so it's

not very long. You can drive east to west and about five and a half hours and about the thinnest point where I live, and it's only fift twenty minute drive to the north coast from the south coast and then the longest it can take you to get across is about two hours. But what's interesting is that topography is unbelievable because there's about three to form large mountain mestiefs which just create this micro climates and all sorts of variants between the east and the west side of

the mountains. So the west side of Crete is really interesting because it's the coolest, it's the wettest side. And basically what happens is the rain will come across the Mediterranean and it starts dumping the water there, so, you know, as the mountains kind of trapping in, it dumps the water, it moves across the island and it continues to dump the water until it gets to the far east end,

and then there there's very little rain left. So the east end is much drier, it's much hotter, and also create is kind of you know latitude eally, it's not straight across the globe, it's kind of angled, so the east side is much farther south than the west side, and so it's still much hotter down here. And it's tropical.

It's the only tropical zone in Europe as well, So even climactically across this little tiny space of the island, you have a huge variation and a lot of mini microclimates to the food can be slightly different the seasons, you know, the seasonal temperatures within the season can be

slightly different. And then of course between the high mountain plateaus and the sea coast, you know, you get you know snow and oftentimes you know, when the snows comes, those mountain peaks are covered for about three or four months out of the year, so there's quite a variety

here on the island. It's also extremely grew green. So really, even though people like to come here in the summer, if you want to experience the food culture and if you want to experience some really awesome hikes, the best time to come is after the rain start, when we kind of have what they call a second spring, and that's when all the wild greens start growing, the wild mushrooms start coming out, the snails come alive, so everybody's

out foraging. Everybody's like collecting what they want to eat, collecting what they want to do. And then of course year round we have a variety of different kinds of

like food production and process is going on. So you know, during this time there's a lot of foraging, there's rackie making, wine productions already going in, and then people are starting to get ready for for cheese and milk production in the spring, so you know, it's extremely rich compared to other islands which typically don't have so much areas for crops, and then you know, just the variety of the different types of mountains, and then the elevation here just makes it.

You know, you have more accessibility and more stuff. Basically, what yeah, utter dream, It sounds like quite a paradise. Let's talk a little bit more about your area of focus, which is in pottery. You came to this work before you were a scholar as an artist. What can you tell us about the traditions in pottery in this region. They have very very very long fish in here in the Aegean with reproduction. The Neolithic culture that was here

before the Manoans also produced pottery. Create because of its biology, has a lot of different types of clay out crops or clay exposures across the island, so you can make a wide range of vessels. You can make a lot of different types of fine wares that can be painted very delicately, or you can big course wear vessels like

their storage jars or their cooking pots. So you really have a wide range of like potting materials to deal with, and that's true for a lot of places here in the Aegean and particularly in Greece, and you know their craftsmen and women above all, so you know, making pottery was very much like second nature to a lot of people.

Welcome back to point of origin. I'm interested in the material part of the research because mostly when we think about vessels for whetstone, it's through a specific culinary or gastronomic lens. But what you're referring to is actually the origins, right, the raw material. So can you say more about that?

So one of the things I'm really interested in, both as a potter and as an archaeologist, looking into kind of the origins of like the Bronze Age vessels and in particular the cooking pots, is kind of what types of plays the Manlan potters were using and what kind of properties they had may be compared to the other types of vessels. So you know, we know through ethnography and and also talking to modern day potters, is that you know there's a lot of different play sources on

the island. Sometimes the modern day potters don't even use the clay towards anymore, and they used like industrial plays, But about fifties sixty years ago they used all these local resources, and so you can see a lot of the you know, the natural plays just kind of outcrops and exposed everywhere, particularly like in the road cut because they're making a lot of new roads on the islands. So that's kind of convenient for us um that are

looking for rock lays. And then in the riverbeds, of course, that's like one of the more traditional places to start looking for rock lays. And so at the site that I work at called mock Class Excavations here on each street, it's directed by Jeffrey Souls and Coast Eustavirus, And here we actually have a Bronze Age artists and quarters where we know there was potters. They're making pottery out of

the local clay. And I've been extremely fortunate to work with a wonderful team that has been looking at the different clay sources and looking at the pottery for years.

And so one of my roles on the project was to come in and in particularly look at the cooking pots to see, you know, what does the cooking pot clay look like, what did these forms look like, And then try to go out into the landscape near the artists and quarters here at this site and try to locate it, work it up, make it, make the cooking vessels themselves, and then basically start from scratch and then end up with a cooking pot that's viable that you

couldn't cook in. So so the cool thing is that you find out about these material properties with the treating clay is that oftentimes the cooking vessels in the Bronze Age didn't really appear to have any distinction between those that they were making large storage jars out of four water jugs out of just all made out of this

kind of course war clay. There's a rock called philite, so with metamorphic rock which is really common here in the local geology, and they just kept it in and the clay that they mixed it up, and that seemed to give it in thermal shock resistance or aided in the heating and cooling of the cooking pot to allow

it to be cooking. So that's that's one of the main things that I do when I'm looking at material sources and trying to look at forms of forms of different types of vessels, particularly in terms of like the history of like of culinary study here on the island. And did you notice over centuries, stylistic or design changes or functional changes in the type of vessels that were being used for culinary purposes. Yeah, that's an interesting question.

In the minoans stayed around for you know, several thousand years, and basically the kind of the iconic vessel was like the big pot with three legs, and it's really perfect for like boiling and submarine food. And what you find in the change of the actual vessel, either at this particular site or other sites, like maybe the upper body will change a little bit, so instead of having an incurving rim, you'll have a rim that that turns outwards.

So maybe you know, when you put a lid on it, lid on it in a different kind of way, but it would still be a litted vessel. There are other types of newar types of vessels that come in that tend to be also a cooking pot with three length but the having it close, you know, it would be

completely open. So it looked like in that situation, whatever you're preparing and that kind of vessel, you'd want so whatever liquid with inside of the vessel to kind of evaporate a little bit quicker or a little bit more easy, and you have to think about these vessels too, not just as cooking pluts, but they're also found industrial areas, So they couldn't to be making like different types of costumes or medicines, or maybe even melting different types of

resins or wax or things like that to create sales for the boat, or you know, decode different types of twine that they were making for, you know, anything that they were producing. So it was kind of like an all purpose industrial vessel, but most commonly used for cooking, you know, So it was really a good pot that was used for heating up stuff. And do you have any examples of what some of the dishes might have been.

We're really luking in each creek because we have excellent preservation with a lot of food in the site, and we have found in more than one occasion we found a cooking pot that have mentals like brown lintles in the bottom, or like haloes of the brown lintles that were burnt, or like head of roaded out over time. We even have like one cooking pot with like the bones of two wild hair. And then so we know that they were at least like hunting or trapping animals

as farming and hunting and fishing. Those are like actual food remains that we found in the pot. At another site called Pupa the loocle boats who are was one of the directives the increase of Sophia new She was excavating and found actual shellfish called the Olympics or pective less inside one of the cooking pots, and so they were making kind of a seafood too. So so you find the actual food remains sometimes in the vessel, but

but it's rare. I mean, it's not common. I don't want to give you know, misrepresentation of like a Pompey ask kind of vision, so you can find them. And we're talking what like two thousand year old vessels or something like that. She's the three thousand years old. I'm

just so amazed by that. I mean, I know that that is precisely what it means to be an archaeologist, but still hearing that, especially just given the age of it, i mean talking millennia, it really blows my mind about the integrity of the clay and then the fact that the contents are still able to give us so much information. Mean,

it's super exciting. And when I'm working with my colleagues who study the actual bones and the siege and the show, and they can look at like a crushed grape seed under the microscope and say, Yep, this grape seed has the look of a seed that was crushed most likely

for line. You're like, oh my god, that's unbelievable. I mean that to me is like, it's just super exciting to be able to look at the actual preservation of the food and me and have an idea of how people you know, performed with that particular food product, to see what they were what they were doing with it. Yeah, it's so cool. We'll never get old. How much of these traditions, these culinary traditions that are rooted in clay pot cooking, how many of them have been retained just

from what you observe in your time there. Oh, I think that's that's that's a really interesting question. Is I think that there's multiple traditions going on simultaneously with food here in the Aegean. So, first of all, you have of claypot cooking, which is slow cooking either in an

oven or like open air cooking. So the Minoans did not have ovens that we recognize like they do today today, they would cook in a catch rolla particularly like a catch a little type cook pots is that particularly like a chickpea type of soup or a big like lamb or something like that. That they would do a lot, a lot of slow cooking hand. So that's like the surrend that kind of cooking they do today. They also have a thing with grilling, lots and wats and lots

and lots of food that's grilled. And you know, we believe that the Manoans were also grilling. People in the Bronze Age also grilled a lot of food. So you have those two types of traditions. And then of course I believe a percent that they practiced food preservation when it came to using the sun or fault blind and the sun, you know, and they do those as well today, depending on the time of the year or where you are. And so, you know, I think that those three types

of traditions are still pretty strong. It's just that they you know, they do them a slightly different way with slightly different food products. How would the grilling do you have any idea how that would have been set up over open flames? Well, I mean, that's a good question. I think here when I've been out with people sometimes and they want to grill up to meat, you know, you'll either have like your wire mesh grill that you just kind of pull out and do and you set

it between two rocks. Or you can also take like a big stick, like a limb off a tree, you know, and you clean it and it's fresh and so it's not dry, and then they just put the meat through that and it stays just just fine. It doesn't I think there's a lot of things in the archaeological record that you just won't see, we just don't recover because

they're made out of organic pieces. And so I think I'm always fortunate that I like seramics because the majority of stuff we find your suram suramic trash really and I think, you know, it's inorganic and for the most part, it's a there. It's going to be there except for some extreme situations, and so it's made out of leather or wood or other you know, other sorts of materials.

It is won't saying MH. Have you found any non clay materials, tools or weapons or anything like that that have given you some insight to go along with what your research has shown you in uh, studying the clay. You know, sometimes what you'll find which has really like is in the clay you'll see impressions like weavings of baskets or weavings of cloths, and often times I think about that as like a secondary kind of lining that they could have used, particularly when you're making a particular

kind of vessel. We have this one very complicated vessel. It's complicated because it's super thin and yet at the same time large, and it's about the size of a large sea turtle show and it's basically that shape inside, and it's also extremely thin, and it's and it's mold made, and it's quite difficult. Nobody has really been able to

figure out how could produce it. And so if you look on the underside of that vessel, it's very you can see impressions of some sort of material, but and oftentimes you're off you're looking at kind of like the negative space of something, you know, embedded in the clay

that can kind of help you. Other than that, you can you can find the odd stone tool, you know, like a pivot stone that will go along with the potter's wheel to try to understand the mechanics of how Potter's wheel could have worked and how you could have put that together, which is kind of you know, it's very exciting to try to understand, and you know, and sometimes they'll have like obsidian blades, you know, which obviously they could have used. It's some sort of splicing tool. Yeah,

you know, things like that. You know, it's it's nothing is really isolated in the world when you're making anything, all the different types of tools you pull out to use. I always try to probe to my problems in that way, to see, like what am I doing and and look back at the archaeological material and say, okay, this is what do I have? What's missing? And then can I get to that, you know, from point A to point B,

and like what's in between? Okay. My last question for you is kind of an obvious one perhaps, but when I don't know the answer to which is how do you know where to go? Book? Well, that is a very good question, I think actually, because if not so obvious, I think when you're looking for new site, it's credibly hard and a lot of archaeologists, you know, they might

grapple with this. For me, I'm very lucky because I'm extremely fortunate in the sense that I work on a site that has a very long history, and so our site was first excavated in nineteen o eight, So so I decided been there much longer than the teams that I'm working with has has been there. But you know

there's things about that. You know, when the first X became lit speakering, he was working at mor class, he was excavating certain points, you know, and then since then several other lads have come and then this next way with Professor Souls and in Potius of ours, they kind of understand the landscape and we can kind of actually see I guess it's looking at pattern recognition and the landscape.

It's like once you're tune your eyes, you know, and then when it doesn't look like that was underneath, you can kind of go, ah, that looks like some buildings there, or you know, these these stones in the roads there's form on death in a straight line, Well that's probably a wall. You know, things that are natural that are lined up in an unnatural way. If that makes me know, that's actually a really good answer, and it's kind of

what is true in so many parts of life. Right you you need to pay attention and recognize patterns and learn from the patterns and apply what you've learned to make informed choices. So yeah, but that's excellent, that's right, it makes sense to me. I am super inspired after talking to you. I think you have just the coolest gig ever a culinary archaeologist, and have really given me a new appreciation for clay pottery. And I already had

a deep appreciation, but a newfound appreciation. So thank you so much for joining us and for sharing all of your knowledge with us. Well, thank you so much, Stephen. It's a big placere to always talk to you, and then I look for for to you coming here. Yes, soon soon. You've inspired me, as I said, so it won't be long I'll be hitting you up. Sounds good, all right, Thanks Carolyn. Hi, this is Stephen calling from Whetstone Magazine. H alcohol you, Hi, How are you great?

Thank you? Thank you for of course, thanks for taking the time. I'm really appreciative. I am familiar with your work through your Donab cookbook, Thank you. Yeah, which I bought a couple of years ago and really really enjoyed. So I'm happy to talk to you. Welcome back to Point of origin. Our guest today is Naoko take More. She is author of the cookbook Donabe and she's also the owner of Toro Kitchen, which is in Los Angeles, and we are so much looking forward to speaking with

her today all about dona be. Thank you so much for joining us now, Co, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited, absolutely as too. So I am really interested in earthenware cooking and clay pot cooking because it's it connects us to a really long and ancient tradition all over the world, many many different cultures, but for the donabe in particular, it's a commentary on Japanese history. So I was hoping you could tell us about what the donabe is and what its origins are.

So stop means clay and not it means pot. And in Japan, back in the really ancient times, there's no written history, but it's said that it can be traced back to more than ten thousand years ago, but then continue to develop and similar to like what we have now, that donade can go back to more than thirteen hundred years ago, and in the regions like Ega, that's kind of like a central of the home shoot the main islands of Japan, and Donade just have been the very

essential cooking tool for Japanese people's lives for many, many centuries, and the making of Donade, Colorio donabe all started to evolve and develop two certain nineteens of now it's still one of the most important cooking vessels in Japanese culture. And it's in fact, I would say, it's like a national cook player for Japanese people. And how did you get into researching? So for me, because I was born and grew up in Japan, donade was like already there.

You know, every household has at least one done. So as I grew up, my family always left, you know, cooking and eating good food. So don't have it to me in a in a grood way. It was like an air to me, you know, I never even thought of it. It was always there and we always cooked in it. Especially on weekend when we have dinner all family together at home, donal it was there and it was cooked and served right at the table and everybody

could participate. And when we get together with grandparents or the relatives. Don't know, it was always there too, just very natural. And also after I realized it was very important part of my life in terms of cooking and eating, but it wasn't after I moved to the United States,

which was back in two thousand one. You know, Los Angeles is very diverse city and with diverse culture, and Japanese food was already quite popular in l A. And there are many Japanese restaurants and people you know, to sush it and pura and you know other things. But I realized that Japanese good food but not very much known among people in l A or people in the US and Dona. There was basically the almost unknown to

the American people. And I talked to different people, my friends and you know, other people, American people, and they all feel like they feel a little bit intimidated by the idea of cooking Japanese food at home. So I felt like, oh, that's only because they don't know what Japanese home cooking is about. And to me, don't they really represent the Japanese home cooking and also the essentially the Japanese culture of like communal dining and how we

bomb together. So I felt like other Japanese living in the US, I thought it was my nation to kind of bring the wonderful Japanese food culture and introduced them to people in l A and beyond. So that kind of how I started. When you're talking about dishes of your early memories, are there certain kinds of donabe that are more closely aligned with specific dishes. The basic style donade is essentially, you know, like a like a caspitle, you know, so there's a ball and the lid. That's it.

So that's what best known style of donade as I grew up. That's actually the only kind of donad I was familiar with. And there are different sizes. Sometimes my mom pulled out like really large donad when we have my grandparents this thing and so there's a big group of people, or when I get sick I took a day off from Gentary school, my mom made it like a porridge, like a very typical like a like comfort eating food was Japanese people, and she pulled a tiny

donadet for individual size and made a porridge. And then they are different produces different regions making donade. And over the years, especially maybe like past two decades, those really like innovative minded trust people, they started to kind of design different styles of donade for different modes of cooking.

That's a great thing about the carrying the tradition, and for I think that the Japanese people and especially those are distance the definition of tradition is not just doing the same same thing over and over and over, but the tradition evolves, you know, according to the people's needs at the time. So there's different styles of donat started to get developed, like a donade design specifically for cooking rice perfect rice, and there's a dona there for steaming,

donad for smoking, etcetera, etcetera. So now I would say like they're very exciting time for the culture of donadic cooking, yeah, which you yourself are helping to ussure into homes all over the US. So thank you for redefining our American food culture. So kind of for on a more practical level, because mostly in the States, you know, we don't we're not accustomed to using clay pot cooking in our own homes. Hence maybe why there are some intimidation for people what

is the cooking application for donabe in one's home. I often tell people who are new to don that, you know, I understand people who feel intimidated if you've never cooked in donade. So I always tell them that dona it's really just a cooking pot, but it's an amazing cooking pot. So so you can just think of anything you would like to cook in a pot and then you can cook it in donade. You know, but why do not

be special? Is the most authentic donade. It's made one in person clay and that the ones I introduced from Japan. It's come from the region called Eagle in Japan, and the entire region Eager used to be that of like Diva about four million years ago, so that was like a prehistoric era. So the the dona from the region is made entirely of the clay from the region. So the clay contains a lot of fossilized micro organism from

the perfect prehistoric era. And so once you know shape the donad and then fire it, the body becomes really poorous because those you know, fossilizing micro organisms, they become they creates the kind of negative tiny negative spaces, and so that's really the key to the kind of like a magic you know, don't create. So the product body of dona, the actually makes the body really strong and durable, and it takes longer time for the heat to build. But once the heat is built, don't the stays hot

for a long long time. And after you turn off the heat is stays for a long time too. So back in the old times, in the centuries ago, people somehow new like don't have the makes the food taste better, But people didn't really know why. But now they're you know, all the scientific studies and their proofs. That's why don't

have the makes food taste better. It's really because of this poorest body and the slow process of building the heat and then slow process of cooling down, so that gradual temperature change actually is essential for the so called many flavors to develop, and all the different flavors kind of integrated together. So that's why don't specially great for soups to braising too, and and don't know, it's often safe.

So I often do like a you know, like a slow cooking, like a funk of meat, you know, like a pop belly, or I cooked you know, like a kind of like a big things like this. Uh, sometimes I put it in the oven for like seven eight hours and I don't have to do anything in a mila and and don't have it. That's all the work for you sold on that that is that is an

awesome description. So the poorest clay that you're mentioning, which has this history tied back to millions of years ago, if you were to source clay from a different prefecture or somewhere else in Japan, with that alter the profile of the dona and if is that something that is happening, it could So the clay from Eager, it's arguably considered as the display for for the pot in the world.

And and there are plays from other regions. And also they're much inexpensive, kind of like a mass produced donag which contains you know, different materials inside too. So I've never tried them like side by side. But to me, like when I use anadive from Ega, it's just yeah,

I just feel this is there, that's the place. Yeah, And you have a retail store in Los Angeles as well, Toro Kitchen, where you are selling the donabe, but you also have other wares too, So so now I think we have more than five hundred different items, including kitchen tools, table where some of the country you know, like food items. So it's really like it's our mission to spread the wonderful Japanese food culture to people outside with Japan, and

I like to call it happy Donadal life. It's not necessarily always about like you have to cook everything in donade, but it's really the spirit of the donade cooking so which is like you enjoy cooking and dyning and involve people and creates the more communication with people and also make your life more fulfilled. Easier too, easier in cooking because I don't know, it's awesome like cooked and serf right out of it, so the cleaning is really easy.

And then we have other like cooking tools and the table where the things and from all over Japan, and they're all made by different artisans. So each product even like a tiny sperm because its own story. So it's really like I want to tell people like who makes the bites the shops? None of the products we introduce are you know, there only because it looks pretty, you know.

We introduced those items because we love them so much, and we want to bring the stories to people, and we're hoping that people who buy them they enjoy them for a long time and once you have like such a nice it and with the stories, the way you appreciate cooking and dining really changed even when you were just preparing just you know, like a bowl of yogurt and granola, or the feast with family and friends. I want to make it even a little bit more meaningful.

So that's that's a kind of mission throughout products so beautiful and it's really true what you say. I am thinking of many meals that I've had in Clay that have a completely different flavor profile just because of the vessel in which it was being served. So if we want to live the happy Donabe life, which I love and I certainly inspired to do, is the best way for people to bring Donabe into their lives. Just go on your website and order what maybe one of the

classic vessels. Would that be a good place for someone to start, Yes, there's really And also if you already have like a specific purposes you want to really like do for don't have the cooking for example, like if you really want something way for cooking premium quality rice, you know you can start with the don't have the rice cooker. And of course you know that doesn't mean that you can only cook rice in the Donabe and any Donabe and you know, with the specific purposes can

be used for you know, other purposes. So it depends that the Classics by Donada is to me like that really the must have items you know in your life and then makes your life much easier and more fun and and more fulfilling definitely. And what is your go to rice recipe when you're cooking in the Donab I must say pretty rice. That's always to me the best. And I could rise almost every single day and sometimes twice a day, and I use this same don't have

a rice cooker for guests almost fifteen years. You know, you can see the really shiny grains of rice, and you smell the really natural, beautiful aroma, you know, like this week aroma. So the plain right to me is my you know go to. Well, I'm really really grateful that you've spent the time schooling us on all things Dona be and your Donabe cookbook is amazing must mustard and for those of us in Los Angeles we can visit you in person, and the rest of us will

have to order the classic online. Thank you so much for joining us today on point of origin. Thank you so must cleasure Okay, thanks to Wako. Have a good day, chairs m h M. Hm m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m and that's it for this episode. Point of Origin is a podcast from My Heart Media and wet Stone Magazine executive produced by Christopher Hasiotis and hosted by me Stephen Saderfield.

Special thanks to Cat Hong for editing, supervising producer Gabrielle Collins, and a very special thanks to my business partner, wet Stone co founder Melissa she who helped produce this podcast. Thanks mel and thanks to all of you for supporting wet Stone and listening to the Point of Origin podcast for all of the latest on all things point of Order gen. You can follow us on Instagram at Whetstone Magazine or online at Whetstone Magazine dot com. We'll see

you next week at the Point of Origin. H h h h