subject: The Hidden Significance Of Kettles [print this page] The kettle is certainly and inarguably one of our most treasured appliances. It has found a soft spot in the hearts of just about every nation, culture, and household in its various incarnations and it seems unlikely to disappear or lose that position any time soon. The great irony, perhaps, is the kettle is at least nowadays, nothing near as essential a tool as, say, an oven. It doesnt make our food edible, or our water drinkable, it is generally used for casual pleasures. Making tea, coffee, or hot chocolate to indulge our taste buds on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
And yet history contains clues which may serve to explain something of the widespread popularity of the kettle.
Ancient archaeological finds from Mesopotamia, dating back to between 2,500 and 3,000BC have revealed bronze devices almost identical in form to the modern kettle. Their purpose is believed to have been the filtration of water rather than the boiling of it, but certainly there are more similarities between the two processes than may immediately meet the eye.
There has been much said about the way in which boiling water can rend it safely consumable in a variety of tough and unhygienic environments, and we know that, along with filtration, boiling is one of the key processes involved in purifying drinking water. A kettle as a filter, and a kettle as a device for boiling water are therefore essentially fulfilling the same role or at least two different sides of the same role.
And yet there is more to the story.
Studies on the diets of the medieval era (particularly around Europe) reveal time and time again a few simple facts. One, people did not quite understand concepts such as sanitation and two, that water-bourne diseases killed thousands if not millions, on a startlingly regular basis.
As a matter of fact, drinking a flagon of water in the medieval period was an activity so dangerous to engage in that it was almost never done. Ale was instead the order of the day, and the staple drink of every corner of society (excepting the nobles who would also indulge in more refined alcoholic offerings, such as wine). Ale, it transpires, simply did not kill people like water did the ancient peoples discovered this and eagerly refined their methods, but apparently had no notion of why it was so much more safe than water. We today, on the other hand, do know. A key element in the brewing process it transpires is the boiling of the concoction (including the water it contains).
This presents us with two interesting realizations: Firstly, that as boiling was a frequently necessary process in creating the staple drinks of the time, tools for boiling were indispensible and necessary for life itself. Secondly, that as the only safely consumable beverages at the time had been boiled, much attention was paid to the boiling process and recipe surrounding it. We know for a fact that this was a driving force behind the creations of ale, but one might also assume that it was a process influential in the creation of our modern hot beverages (in their ancient incarnations) as well. Tea, etc.
To take this line of reasoning is therefore to conclude that both the kettle and the drinks we use it for most commonly, were passed onto us from a time when these things were not merely frivolities, but necessities.
