>3 Hiding (Objects 21-30)

My good friend Hasan was telling me about the significance of the tea cozy in Pakistani culture (a tea cozy is an object that looks like a ski hat and is used to improve the tea brewing process by covering the tea pot). Hasan underlined the social value of the tea cozy in a number of social ceremonies such as the first meeting between families in arranged marriages. All I could think as I was listening to his fascinating narration was that a tea cozy hides the process of tea brewing, as do the majority of the objects I have chosen for this third set in the blog (21 to 30) such as the tea pot, the samovar, the pressure cooker or the bamboo steamer. Most of these objects are about water, sustenance and hiding: they work with water to provide sustenance in a way that keeps the process hidden to the user. The process of cooking with a pressure cooker still marvels me: I saw my mother using a pressure cooker almost daily during my childhood in Spain. She took it from the shelf, added raw vegetables, abundant water, a bit of olive oil, paprika, a pinch of salt and pepper, twisted the lid shut and, in ten minutes…voila! the vegetable soup was ready. We simply take the cooker for granted, but in reality it is a miraculous catalyst that transforms separate things into a complex cultural item: a good meal.