Kall Chatti (Stone Vessel)

The kall chatti is a vessel made of stone.
Its also called kacchatti in Tamil.
In fact kall means stone and chatti means vessel in Tamil.

We used to have various sizes of such kacchattis at home. I am talking about 40 years back when I remember my mom making the sambars and rasams in it. The aroma was too good and literally pulled us like magnets to the kitchen.

Mom saw an advertisement in the local papers about sale of kacchattis in an exhibition in Valluvar Kottam beginning today.
She has been very keen to possess one at home since we had perhaps discarded our old ones long time back with so much of shifting and relocating to 3 or 4 different places in these 40 years.

The kacchatti is made of a soft stone but retains the heat very well. When preparations like the sambar or the rasam are heated in it, it gives out a special aroma and taste to it.

There are some disadvantages of using kacchattis in modern times. Those were days of charcoal or wood fire to cook meals which is also called 'slow cooking'. These are days of turning on the knob and cooking in double-quick time with so much ease and literally no pollution whatsoever. The kacchatti would be kept on low embers and the dish allowed to simmer for long. Vatha kozhambu would be another favourite dish which was made in a kacchatti.

If mishandled there are chances of its breaking, as the stone is really delicate. Likewise a crack or break somewhere can render it useless. So only a cloth is used to bring down the hot kacchatti from the fire down to the serving area.

Mom has made up her mind to buy one today, so it would be my pleasure to take her around as this is a wonderful opportunity to keep her happy at her ripe age of 84. While on that we also intend to catch up on the newly painted dolls of gods, goddesses and many other things.
Mylapore and Kurulagam in Parry's Corner are the two best places to go around for window shopping of the dolls.

Its the baby's day out today! :-)

Cheers.
Mahalakshmi.