Why Is Unglazed Pottery Not Considered "Food Safe"? - Q and A
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2024
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I am covering some pottery frequently asked questions today. Why is unglazed pottery not considered "food safe"? And Why won't my pottery hold water. Low-fire, earthenware pottery is naturally porous and this provides some special situations related to seepage of liquids.This video helps explain food safe and water leakage in unglazed pottery.
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People still use unglazed pots for cooking in India; you can help make it less porous by seasoning it with heat and oil, much as you would a cast iron pan.
Thanks for that. I demonstrated sealing with oil in a fire in a recent video.
Something we tend to overlook in our overly-blessed lives is that early people used the same pots meal after meal. They may have only had one or two cooking pots, and since they were getting heated at least once a day, if not more, there would have been little opportunity for bacteria to build up. They didn't have fridges, so they were only making enough for one meal, so food wouldn't be sitting around in the pots for the bacteria to feed on (no impromptu "science experiments" in the back of prehistoric refrigerators!)
Yes, great point. Constant reheating kept them relatively clean.
Truw
Hey Andy, can I just say that your videos have provided me with a hobby that helps me get through day by day.
Awesome, thanks
Glad to hear that my earthenware is normal. I initially thought I hadn't properly fired it when I saw the outside become moist from holding water. Keep the content coming on the basics, great for new potters!
Thanks. It can be sealed if you want. Tomorrow's video shows one good way to seal porous pottery.
Burnish the inside to compress and smooth the clay. The slicker and shinnier the better. Use a starchy food such as oatmeal or potatoes for the first time cooking. The starches (sugars) will get into any small cracks or pores and have the ability to burn. Burned sugars or starches can help to seal the inside of the pot. Nothing other than glazing the inside will completely seal it. Just heat the pot to kill bacteria but bring the temp up slowly to keep it from breaking.
Thanks, good tips.
Am I the only one here that thinks that is the coolest shirt ever! Haha, good stuff Andy. 👍
Ha Ha, thanks. amzn.to/2S0T3DU (affiliate link)
I can, today, go shopping, here in Canada, at the Indian Grocers, and purchase for intentional use un-glazed pottery for putting milk into with the full intention it will sour. That's how traditional curd (yogurt) is made. The not-food-safe component is the milk, as pasteurized/homogenized milk will rot before it becomes curd. Another un-glazed product is externally un-glazed, where only the inside is sealed, the intent with these is that you soak them in water then fill them with dairy or juice and as they dry the contents are chilled (called swamp cooling). There is also a terra cotta roasting/baking tray and lid, soaked first before used in heat very common and well respected. There are probably other un-glazed out there, but those three I know I can go and purchase and use today either locally or from Amazon.
Thanks you so much for these examples of the use of unglazed ceramics.
Thanks Andy. Waterbags and swamp coolers use this same concept of evaporation to cool.
Yes, I didn't get into that but the cooling aspect is one of the positives of earthenware pottery.
Thanks for the video. I have been following Tony's videos regarding firing and have been very interested in his various techniques. I will seriously consider taking one of his workshops sometime in the future.
Andy, can you show us what measures we should actually take to keep unglazed pots safe to consume from?
Yes, have you seen this video yet? th-cam.com/video/V5eiGaFdeuw/w-d-xo.html
For me, the tendency of earthenware to leak slowly is important, mostly so that I know not to set an earthenware vase with flowers on top of my great grandmothers table.
True
I would like to see a video of ancient glazing techniques.i.e. salt glazing, ash, and other techniques. Most people show store bought glazes. I want to know how to make some simple, durable, food safe glazes.
That is an interesting subject but not really appropriate to my channel because I focus on Southwestern pottery traditions and technologies.
@@AncientPottery don't put yourself in a box man. Your content is great.
@@rodrigogalilea9409 Thanks but primitive pottery is my passion not just a niche I am trying to make money in. If this "box" every becomes too confining I won't be branching out into other types of pottery like glazing, I would go in a totally different direction.
What’s your thought on drinking water out of non-glazed mugs? I noticed with my last vessels that they have a slight taste of earth/dust, and became suspicious of whether it is safe. Appreciate your sharing 😊
i'd also point out that some of the asian cultures used the 'porous' 'non-glazed' aspect of low-grade earthen-ware from 'non ideal' clay soils to facilitate fermentation in huge vats. Particularly Korea. Where they call these low-grade, general use pottery meant for daily use by peasants 'Onggi'. Instead of trying to make the food requirements to influence the pottery, they took what pottery they could easily mass produce and used that to influence the food.
I would also bet that the Romans used unglazed pots or amphorae to pump out the millions of gallons of Garum (fermented fish sauce) that they put on everything.
I'm no potter, but there doesn't seem to be 'bad' clay. Every clay has some best use, it just may not be suited for what that potter wants to make at that time.
Great points, thanks for sharing.
What about ancient clay pottery for bread making? Can I use these methods I am learning from your website and videos to make a clay pot for baking bread? That’s my ultimate goal, without a kiln. Thank you in advance for any direction! And thank you graciously for taking the time to put this channel together. Learning so much with my kids and we are so excited.
Well, I have never used any of my pottery for bread making. I have no doubt it would work, but I have no advice or tips because I have never tried it. I hope you get it to work for you.
Great info! Thank you. Could you put a seasoning on such earthen ware with oil like you do with cast iron. It would have to be a food safe oil that doesn’t go rancid of course or same issue.
Yes, you can use oil and other things to season or seal your earthen ware pottery. I made a video about this here th-cam.com/video/SXxH9eQP8i8/w-d-xo.html
@@AncientPottery thanks Andy!
Hi! Thanks for the video! So, you don't recommend eating using self-made pottery like this? If i try to eat 1-2 times from plate or bowl like that, it will not be safe?
I can't remember which culture did it right now. But one used to use large jugs of water filled up as air conditioning with evaporation. Think it was the Egyptians but I may be wrong
This was common here in Arizona not that long ago. My mom said that when she was a kid many people kept a large earthenware jug of drinking water. A simple water cooler.
Yes, Ancient Egyptians did that. Actually, it's still done in some parts of Egypt.
If pot is glased on inside but not on bottom outside is it safe to put in oven
Thanks Andy! Was Terrra Sigillata ever used by ancient cultures in this part of the world?
Clay slips were commonly used but I don't think they ever used the levigation process to purify those slips the way tera sig is made.
Hey Andy, on the topic of food safety and liquid storage, do you think that one could store liquor inside an earthenware ceramic vessel for extended amounts of time?
No idea, I wonder how they did it long ago?
In South Africa people drink fermented or sour milk
That's interesting, I would think drinking sour milk would make you feel sick
@@AncientPottery It is called "amasi"
@@mikaelak90 I’ll look it up, thanks.
What role does the firing temp play in the porousness of the vessel?
No doubt it could have a huge impact. But since I am doing low-temperature surface firings it makes very little difference to me because I never approach vitrification of the clay.
@@AncientPottery interesting, thank you!
Do you have any information or knowledge about the ceramic body of the pot being toxic by itself? Such as containing dangerous metals that can get into the food or drink and contaminate it? Especially if you use it to boil the food in it? I also have in mind the clay that might be harvested from near a road, where a lot of car fumes are. Thank you!
Well our ancestors all ate on raw unglazed earthenware for millennia and here we are so it couldn't be all that dangerous. As for exhaust, that's not getting in the clay, maybe a trace amount on the surface but most of the clay comes from underground, if it makes you feel better just discard the clay on the surface and only use the clay from deeper in. I eat and cook on ceramics, and I know a lot of other people who do too, none of them seem to be suffering from rare diseases or heavy metal poisoning. There are even people all over the world who eat clay en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia Then there is the dirt we all ingest in our food every day www.healthcaredailyonline.com/strange-facts-the-average-person-eats-6-lbs-of-dirt/ Have you ever been camping? I can tell you I often get bugs and dirt in my food while camping and backpacking. Believe me, we all have bigger things to worry about than dirt (clay) poisoning us.
@@AncientPottery Thanks for the answer. I also want to thank you for this channel, I'm literally eating your videos (all the way from Romania). Great stuff!
Or sometimes pinesap
well not if you want to eat or drink from it, pine sap tastes terrible.
I've heard of using beeswax
Yes beeswax would work. Of course in prehistoric times there were no honeybees in North America.
Another concept of why unglazed items maybe considered not food safe has to do with toxic elements. For example the manganese you sometimes use for paint, or lead content. If the clay body or pottery hasn’t been tested these can be an issue. The ancients didn’t have a concept of this. Look at Europe the used pewter for dishes and tankards and we now know that this is not a safe practice. Just because the ancients did it doesn’t make it safe. They also used mercury for makeup, medicine, etc. Earthenware can be perfectly safe unglazed but it also might not be depending on the constituents of the body or paints used on it. It seems this is a point that deserves mentioning especially when the clay is being collected from places like roads, it could be contaminated with lead compounds from fuel or exhaust that has accumulated over years.
Of course always think about the paints used, I would never eat or drink from a surface that was painted with lead or manganese paints. I am skeptical that earthenware could be toxic, maybe one in a million, but hardly worth worrying about in my opinion. Some people eat clay! Many people all over the world eat off of unglazed and untested clay, they don't seem to be dropping like flies. Driving a car is sometimes said to be the most dangerous thing any of us will ever do, and yet we still do it every day.
Stoneware (much higher firing temperature) will make the clay non-porous. However, it is still not recommended to use a pot that is unglazed inside (outside doesn't matter) for eating or keeping food, because the rough surface creates lots of places for bacteria to grow. Once there is bacterial film, it's very hard to get rid of it. Even glazed surfaces with crackle are not recommended, because bacteria can grow in the cracks.
Ancient people died from all sorts of things, and didn't necessarily know why, so death was much more acceptable.
I know people who eat from earthenware today and they are still alive. Heat will always kill bacteria, it's not that hard.