The Mortar and Pestle

During grad school, I became aquainted with many facts as I was taking art classes and working at the museum on campus. During my art class I learned about the various guilds that were found in Italy long ago. People were assigned to guilds based on their line of work. The guild that interested me the most was the one which involved the artists. Ironically, the artists were not the only ones included in this guild. Because the guild category was based on the tool used in the trade, the pharmacists and I believe doctors were included in the same guild. The reason being that they both used the mortar and pestle in their work. The artists used it to grind down pigments to make paint, and the pharmacist used it to grind down the drugs used to make medicine. Something interesting happened as I was learning about this. I met an artist who worked in recreating master paintings from different time periods. It so happened that she did this on the side and that her main job was a Walmart Pharacist. I found this connection very interesting.

Following my learning about the mortal and pestle's uses in the medical field and art, I became somewhat familiar with its uses in cooking. I found them very interesting tools and have purchased a marble one. I use it to grind salt and pepper. It can be used for many things in the kitchen. According to the EHow website, it preserves the flavor better than a food processor.

So there you have some pieces of useless, but interesting information.