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Item Info
It is the reproduction of the ancient ligurian mortar. Its structure is in Carrara white marble with a wooden pestle. It was and still is, for lovers of tradition, the best tool to make “pesto” obtained crushing the basil leaves with oil and garlic in it. For similar but different recipes, its use has been widespread also in Provence.
Dimensions: Ø external 22.5 cm, internal diameter (cavity) 16 cm. maximum size. (including protrusions) 30 cm; wall thickness 3.5 cm.; H. 13 cm.
Weight: 8 kg
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Customer Reviews
Luminosa
This is a real Carrara marble mortal and wood pestle directly from Italy. Carrara marble is arguably the finest in the world. It is almost pure alabastar-colored, with few veins. It is the stuff of artwork legend including Michaelangelo's David and innumerable others. Although a fair amount of this fine stone comes into the US for sinks, counters and such, household items such as this are rare.This is almost impossible to get in the USA. Sur La Table WAS selling one a few years ago (so it might come up on a Google search...) but it is no longer sold by them. You can, as of this writing, get a lovely smaller one from Williams Sonoma, but I found that was too small to be truly useful for making batches of, say, pesto, where you need some room for both the ingredients and the action of mashing and pounding them. Williams Sonoma does have some nice Carrara marble pieces...very nice...at Williams Sonoma prices; their comparable mortar and pestle which is small lists at $99.99 and in CA we add nearly 9% sales tax plus $$ for shipping and handling if you can't get to their store.This is iconic. If you look at the cover of Alice Water's recent (2010) book "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart" you will see she has one of these, in this size, plunked right in front of her, in her cover photo...THAT is making a statement. This is a classic Ligurian mortar and pestle - a style that has been used throughout the Mediterraneam (Provence as well...) for aeons. Similar ones date back to Etruscan artifacts. So, if all that floats your boat and you are that kind of foodie or kitchen freak as I am (and a serious cook at that!) then this is a great deal. I ordered it and it ships from Italia, and it arrived in ***well under a week; about 5 days***. Impressive! Packed in nifty Italian newspapers, too (which I liked: recyclable and enchanting if you want to brush up on your Italian...or just read local schtick in Italian.)20 cm model that I got has plenty of heft - diameter is 7.75 inches not counting the 'tabs' (which are nice handles if you are really mashing some pesto...); the bowl is a nice depth and the internal diameter of the bowl is 5.25". I have several other mortars/pestles of different sizes/styles/origins (granite, black marble, lava Aztec Molcajete...) as they intirgue me. Online I had read a review by a foodie blogger who tested several different types and her comments ring true: some have very rough interiors which can be useful for some 'grinding' action; the interior of these Carrara marble mortars are roughed up but not as intensely roughed as other types, which is exactly as the food blogger wrote. Both types work well...it is just a stylistic difference.This is unpolished marble, so it has a matte finish (unlike the typically available Chinese marble items such as mortars, rolling pins, etc, that are highly polished); it is hand made and has a lovely rustic, subtly 'hewn' quality to the surfaces inside and out - faint feathering from the carving tools...quite lovely. It comes with a carved, hefty solid wood pestle. I have read reviews in which people who got these wood pestles initially doubted they would be good, thinking a stone pestle would be better and I had the same thought (my others all have stone pestles...) In Italy and Provence I have only seen the wooden ones and in fact, it is GREAT! Something about the wood works very well with this style of mortar.I have been to Carrara Italy and seen the magnificent exposed white marble cliffs on the mountains from where marble has been mined literally for centuries, and the seemingly endless yards along the coastal highway where one can buy all manner of Carrara marble - slabs, fountains, statuary and much more. It wasnt until after leaving the region that I really wanted one of these and began to realize how rare they are to find - there are not really any international sellers selling on the internet(found only one) and even sleuthing on eBay, it took MONTHS before any showed up and the two that eventually did were antiques: odd sizes, showing signs of their past lives, and pricey - at least twice what this one is priced at; one with no pestle.I am planning to be back in that part of Italy fairly soon and for a while thought to hold out and get one there so that I could relish the sentimental value of it. BUT, I quickly let go of that madness, and here is what changed my mind: 1) the Euro / US Dollar exchange rate is awful so sometimes things actually wind up costing more over there than here stateside (that is true!); 2) travelling with stones in your luggage is not romantic...I have done it and it is a chore to tote a big rock around, and this is basically a big rock; 3) besides toting it around, if you put it IN your luggage to fly it home, the airlines will gladly charge you up the...well, you know...for excess luggage weight and if you don't want that, you can enjoy the experience of dragging it through every airport check point/customs/airline aisle etc. to bring your baby on home....ugh!I have actually done this madness already on a different trip....all that sweet sentimentality gets tainted with the reality of travel drudgery, in my case on the long haul to the West coast. So I realized that buying this here at Amazon from this seller is a great way to 'have my cake and eat it too' so to speak.Oh, one more point: I sent the seller a question about the dimensions before buying and got a detailed response pronto.Bottom line: I high recommend this hard-to-find handmade artifact-quality mortar/pestle; highly recommend this seller who is courteous with excellent responsive communication and superfast international shipping. That's that.
Lookup: 22,5 cm, Mortar cm, Mortar 22,5
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