Starter Kit. Idea 34 of 500. Cluster 2
Clay-pot cooking classes
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Borrow three clay pots and a wood fire from a family who still cook this way, and run one lunch class for visitors: season the pot, cook one dish, eat it together. Charge a trial price and offer the pots for sale at the end. A full class, and pots carried home in hand luggage, are your proof.
- Who pays first
- Food-curious visitors who have eaten clay-pot curry and want to learn why it tastes different, and to buy the pot.
- What leaves today
- Clay pots sell for little at the market; teaching the cooking turns an everyday pot into a lesson and a souvenir.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what hygiene standard a kitchen teaching clay-pot cooking to guests needs.
- National Crafts Council. Ask which potters supply cooking pots that could also be sold to guests.
Check before you spend
That the kitchen is safe for guests near open fire, that the pots are safe for food, and what insurance covers burns.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay for a clay-pot lesson and their own pot?
- Can a clay pot survive a flight home in a suitcase?
- What do pots and firewood cost per class?
A comparison from the book
Dambulla hub. Appendix
"The hub is the clay and the kitchen: pottery, the cooking"
Pair the potter and the kitchen, as the book's clay and kitchen hub does.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.