Q1.
What did Harappan cooking pots contain?
Answer
Scientific examinations of the clay pots have provided some answers — and the surprises are the interesting part.
| Found in the pots | Expected or surprising? | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| Dairy products | Expected | They kept and milked animals — the chapter says they domesticated a number of animals |
| Turmeric | Surprising | Food was spiced, not merely boiled. Turmeric is still in every Indian kitchen today |
| Ginger | Surprising | A second spice — so cooking was already a matter of flavour and, quite possibly, of health |
| Banana | Surprising | Fruit was being used in cooking, and it must have been grown or traded for |
Put these together with the rest of the section and the Harappan food basket looks like this: cereals — barley, wheat, some millets, sometimes rice; pulses — beans, peas and lentils; a variety of vegetables; meat from domesticated animals; fish from both rivers and the sea; dairy; and spices and fruit. As the book concludes, “clearly, their diet was quite diverse!”
How can anyone know what was in a pot 4,000 years ago? Cooking leaves microscopic residues soaked into the clay — starch grains, plant crystals and chemical traces. Scientists scrape a sample from the pot's inner surface and analyse it in a laboratory. Animal and fish bones from the rubbish heaps tell the rest of the story. This is archaeology working with science — no text, no inscription, and yet we end up with a menu.
Did you know? Turmeric and ginger in the same pot is very close to a modern Indian tadka. It is one of the clearest threads running unbroken from the Harappans to the kitchen in your house.