Mortar and Pestle

Smashing and grinding into fine particles is the job of a mortar and pestle. Mortars are the vessels; pestles are the handheld tools that do the work. The concept and form are probably the earliest of all cookery tools anywhere in the world. The earliest American mortars were probably stone, although other materials—cast iron, cast bronze, and heavy ceramic—would have been brought with immigrants from the beginning. Mortars made of the hardest, densest wood available, lignum vitae (wood of life), from a tropical tree, were probably in very early use, too. Local hardwoods that resist splintering, such as maple, were also used. Even if set into wooden handles for comfort, the business end of a pestle was made of the same material as its mortar. Since the mid-nineteenth century, most mortars and pestles have been made of thick, white stoneware that resembles marble, with wooden handles for the pestles. Stoneware is impervious to acids and alkalies, and it does not interact with foods. An all-wood implement like a pestle, used with any kind of vessel, is called a beetle.