Reminiscing the traditional Kitchens

Kitchens are an integral part of our homes, it's not possible to think about life without food. Variety of food is cooked on a regular basis in the kitchen and for cooking, Indian households use varied cookware. The contemporary modern kitchen's are stacked with electronic gadgets, steel, nonstick , ceramic, copper, aluminium cookware, but there are few age old items which have suddenly vanished from the kitchen shelves.Though personally I am quite fortunate since I am into the habit of using the heritage kitchen tools and utensils. The cookware and tools that have done the disappearing act are in good numbers however, I wish to rewaken the ones used by our grandmother's. 

BAMBOO SOOPS
This indigenous machine made out of thin earrings of Sarpat was at one time an important tool of our kitchen. It was used to clean various kinds of grains, the process of cleaning the grains is known as  (Pachhorna) in Awadhi language. After placing the lentils in the soop, it was slowly tossed in the air in a special way and when the soop came down, it was gently patted by hand. Using soop was also an art, not everyone can use soop.The grains used to remain in the soop and the dirt would come out. The bamboo soops are ceased to be visible in the kitchen, they are now only seen during weddings or any auspicious occasion.

BRASS UTENSILS 
The taste of Kheer cooked in the traditional pital (brass) utensil prepared at home by my grandmother still lingers on my tongue. Food cooked in such vessels are enriched with the minerals of the respective metal.There’s a lot that revolves around food in Indian culture, and these metals have a story to tell. Not only do they make your meal look beautiful, they have an Ayurvedic, therapeutic advantage. Brass utensils like paraat, bhagona, lota, batuli etc. are still part of many households, though they are invisible on modern kitchen shelves. With the popularity of modern easier to use cookware the traditional pital utensils were left far behind. 

BRONZE UTENSILS 
Kansa or phool (bronze) is the name of a metal that was made from a mixture of copper and zinc. Steel gained prominence during the seventies. Utensils made of phool were widely used by the  middle class of the society which included things like lota, glass, bowl, parat, batuli-batula, gagra, karchul, kadahi. The lower class used  aluminum utensils more, but now all these metals have been replaced by steel. 

Apart from this, there were also ash (rakh)and stones in our kitchen's for washing the utensils. With the arrival of cooking gas and the use of steel, the usage of ash and stones gradually vanished and instead bars and liquids took their place .