Eclectic Equipment: Cultural Cues

First published on July 14, 2013:  Here it is again.  For it is the season....

A bowl of freshly picked röd vind bär (Red-Wine Berry), from our neighborhood !! 

Every country has something specific, something unique.   We call it culture.  Culture is much-encompassing and includes everything from language, cuisine, clothing, rituals and traditions, which are usually rendered in music, literature, movies of the country.

A small, very small, often overlooked part of that culture is its ‘tools’ and equipment that help us maintain that culture.  It may be as simple as a specially designed needle to string flowers, or make home/handmade shoes (yes every country did that at some point, In India that went on till early 20th century), or as complicated and modern as electricity driven butter churners to put in country’s brand chocolates!!

Here you get to see two simple ones.  One each from two of the countries I have lived in.

Normally I would put a quiz here and ask the readers to guess what they are.  But I will save us the time.

So, here the first one is from Fiji.  Wanna guess?

Coconut scraper:  Used so few times, that the prices is still sticking on it!!

Well, this one is a very cheap version of a coconut-scraper.  I bought it while I was living in Fiji.  I never really had to scrap it, since the woman who helped me would do it for me whenever I needed it.  I also found out that the local grocery story MH (Morris Hedstrom--a Swedish/Nordic Name by the way) had a mechanized coconut-scraper, which did the same job for very little money (or may be it was free, I do not remember) and almost no effort.

This one, made of aluminum, is not very strong.  I bet there are better ones. I have hardly used it since I moved out of Fiji.  Every time I try it bends out of shape—literally.  So, I keep it as a souvenir!

And here is one from Sweden.  

 Berry picking device

A few days ago I was at the ICA—which sadly enough is the closest thing to Wal-mart here. (I say the saddest thing, because I see Sweden fast changing its ways to the US and it bothers me.  Walmart is convenient, but it has ruined small town America.  And there needs to be a separate post on the issue).  The only good thing is that with Swedish laws, people cannot be underpaid and health insurance in included if you are a resident in the country (which even I did not get in the US until I worked at University--so not only the unemployed were excluded, those with jobs at many stores such as walmart were overlooked, no wonder walmart wants to expand. No matter what the justification behind limiting access to facilities and services every human needs, when we make money and profit more important than people, the result can never be ‘people’ it is always a ‘frenzy’.  Having lived here for over three years, now I can say that.  There is a calm and peace on the faces of people that I hardly ever saw in the US, a level of contentment—again a separate post is required for that)—

So, ICA in that sense is still different from Walmart.  At ICA, when I noticed these gadgets….I asked a couple of bubbly teenagers who were chatting away around a display of huge candles… ‘excuse me, what is this?”

The pretty blondes giggled, gulped, and giggled again!!  Then gesturing with their hands, they said, ‘You use them to ---“ they made a gesture of scooping out something ‘take out the berries”

Ah!! The light bulb moment! I am sure some in the US know about it.  But I have never been berry-picking.  All my Swedish friends and many European friends can spot a berry shrub and say, ‘ah, blueberry, strawberry……”

Just like, even after having lived over a decade and a half away from India, and even in India I was in north India, when I arrived in Fiji, I could easily spot a Papaya tree and a banana tree--- people living in the northern hemisphere can easily spot berries.  Both Papaya and banana trees are more common in the south of India, but even being a northerner I knew them well.   I can pick out a mango tree, a guava tree, a curry leaf tree, a tamarind tree, a neem tree and some more….

Somethings we just absorb as a part of our growing up, and never realize that that is a part of our composite knowledge.

Some tools are always more familiar to us.  Some measurements do not require measuring cups because we have baked the cakes, kneaded the dough, and whisked the cream so often that we ‘sense’ the measurements.

That sensing, when it becomes a reflex action, is a good portion of what makes for culture!  So, what I leave you all with is, how much of that ‘reflex action’ focus do we have today on basic survival skills, cooking, sewing, carpentry, ----most of the knowledge that we call education is only about ‘how to get a job’ while we outsource our everyday living.  And hence require higher paying jobs so that we can afford to buy the basics.  Processed foods, eating out, getting food delivered, ----

Food, an important, and borderless ritual--requires meditation, time and thoughtfulness.  At least what we learn from Ayurveda, and other holistic philosophies, is that the mental state of the cook is crucial to the ultimate effect--not the taste of the food (Read 'Like Water for Chocolate', or Mistress of Spices' to read a 'magic realism' version of this idea). Since the state of the ingredients, how they were grown, cooked and presented, including the physical,mental and emotional health of the cook, was important, I knew several of my relatives who had decided never to eat anything but 'home-cooked' food.  Two of my uncles lived that way.  Our modern thinking would say, 'Ah such pressure on the wife, why must a woman do all this?" But they were not picky about that. Either wives cared enough to cook ahead of time or the men did with eating fruits and yogurt that day.  This conversation today is missing in our times of what Susan Douglas calls, 'the food porn'  We are seduced by chocolates and ice creams and yet told that a skinny body should be and can be had, despite consuming all these!!  Kellog's cornflakes, Hagendaas, and CocaCola, all lead to a great figure and a high self-esteem!!

May be there should be a weekend class to get the children acquainted with basic culture appropriate tools, if for nothing else, to demystify plain survival skills such as gathering food and cooking!!