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Bringing It Home
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For centuries, Native people have been
making micaceous pottery for cooking. This
month, we show you how to make your own
traditional bean pot and stir up a batch of
New Mexican pinto beans and enchiladas.
PHOTO BY lois ellen frank
NEW MEXICO | AUGUST 2010 49
Bringing It Home HOW-TO
by KRISTEN DAVENPORT | photography by LOIS ELLEN FRANK
Earth and Fire
Embrace the ways of the ancients, and make your own micaceous bean pot
When I grow up, I want to be
a potter.
Right now, I’m stuck in life choices
I’ve already made—mother, writer, farmer,
beekeeper. Because those jobs completely
fill my time, it’s been suggested (primarily
by my husband) that I do not need another
hobby. But ever since I first heard about
the magic of micaceous cookware several
years ago, I have nurtured a dream about
learning to make this kind of pottery.
Then, along came an opportunity to
spend several days in a micaceous-pottery
class with one of the best teachers in
New Mexico, and write about it. (Isn’t
this job great?)
Years ago, for another assignment, I
interviewed New Mexico’s grand master
of micaceous pottery. Felipe Ortega, the
Jicarilla Apache medicine man credited
with reviving this art of functional cookware from near extinction, told me that
the Jicarilla Apache say that micaceous
pots make the beans taste sweet. Since
then, I’ve learned that he is right. When
I started thinking about writing the story
you’re now reading, my first idea was to
convince Ortega to teach me himself, but
he was out of the country at the time.
Where to take micaceous
pottery classes:
• Brian Grossnickle Studios: Grossnickle
holds classes at his Tijeras studio several times
a year, and teaches at Santa Fe Community
College. (505) 281-1853,
www.micaceouscookware.com
• Felipe Ortega Studios: Ortega teaches at
several New Mexico venues throughout the
year, and sometimes accepts apprentices at
his La Madera studio. In winter, he teaches in
Mexico. (505) 583-2345, www.felipeortega.
com, [email protected]
• Santa Fe Community College: Beginning
and advanced classes in micaceous pottery
are offered each semester. (505) 428-1000,
www.sfccnm.edu
• Santa Fe Clay: The studio gives workshops
in micaceous cookware this fall.
(505) 984-1122, www.santafeclay.com
50 NEW MEXICO | AUGUST 2010
Enter Brian Grossnickle. As Ortega’s
apprentice for two years, Grossnickle lived
with, studied with, and helped Ortega dig
micaceous clay from secret pits not far
from his studio in La Madera, a ranching
village about 50 miles north of Santa Fe,
just north of Ojo Caliente. Grossnickle, an
elfin sort of guy brimming with irreverent
humor, insists that I refer to him not as
Brian Grossnickle but as Brian the Bean
Pot Maker. “I love making bean pots,” he
says. “I’d be happy if I could make bean
pots all day long.”
I arrive at Grossnickle’s yurt studio
outside Tijeras, a village of about 500
people about five miles east of Albuquerque, to crash a class that has been going on
for nearly two months. I feel totally out of
place and worry, walking in, that I’ve got
all this dirt under my nails from the hours
I spent transplanting tomato seedlings the
day before. Then I remember: Oh yeah,
these people (like me) love dirt. “Here’s an
apron, if you don’t want to get dirty,” says
Grossnickle. (As if I weren’t already?)
“Class,” says Grossnickle as I settle in,
“tell Kristen what we think of the bean pot!”
The voices rise in chorus: “They’re
essential! They’re sensuous! They’re the
ultimate in micaceous cookware!”
“When learning,” Grossnickle tells
me, “we always start with the bean pot,
because if you can build a bean pot, you
can build anything.”
He gives me a one-on-one demonstration. First, you take a pookie.
“A pookie?”
He spells it for me: p-u-k-i.
In New Mexico, anyway, puki is a Hopi
word for the base vessel used to shape the
bottom of a bean pot. In other words: a
ceramic bowl or plate you find at a thrift
store, preferably with a nice shape and
clear edges, so your coils go up straight as
you form your pot.
You use a standard rolling pin to roll out
the clay, then cut your bottom, pressing it
into the puki. Then you make some clay
worms, “just like you did in kindergarten,”
Grossnickle reassures me. These are your
coils, which you gradually snake around
your puki base to form a cylinder—the
walls of your pot.
When the pot is tall enough, you let
it dry for an hour or two before adding
smaller coils so that the neck of the pot
tapers in at an angle of about 45 degrees.
This is where I start having trouble.
Once the pot tapers in at the neck, it’s
supposed to flare out again to form a nice
rim, with the walls of the pot having the
same thickness throughout. Using simple
tools—a lazy Susan, an aluminum scraping
doodad, a wooden shaping gizmo—I spend
about half an hour shaping my pot into
something that looks, well, a bit wonky.
“Don’t worry,” Grossnickle comforts me.
“Symmetry is overrated. Just center your
belly button on the belly of the bean pot
and it will be fine.”
After a day’s work, I set down my pot
near Grossnickle’s woodstove to let it dry
for a few days. I am warned that the first
day is the fun part. The real work comes
later: scraping, sanding, and polishing the
pot before it is fired.
Scholars say that while local Pueblo
and Hispanic populations have made
micaceous cookware for centuries, the
tradition is not unique to New Mexico.
Archaeological evidence of the use of
micaceous clay cookware dates back to
Neolithic Germany, more than 6,000
years ago, where pukis were apparently
carved from igneous rock. In Africa, findings suggest that micaceous clay was used
to make stew pots that were fired with
burning cow dung.
New Mexico is a fairly rich source of
Top row—Wedging clay removes air pockets
and readies it for coil-making. Instructor
Brian Grossnickle snakes coils of clay to form
a cylinder. Using scraping tools, Grossnickle
smooths out the coils and adds more to form
the bean pot. Middle row­— Gradually, he adds
shorter coils to form the neck of the bean pot.
Grossnickle uses a wooden scraping tool to
make the walls of the bean pot an even thickness. The bean pot air-dries. Bottom row—
Once the clay has hardened, the potter sands it
smooth and polishes it with slip. Firing the pot
with New Mexico juniper and piñon wood creates smoky whorls on the surface. A basic bean
pot can be used on the stovetop, in the oven,
or the old-fashioned way—atop an open fire.
continued on page 52
Where to buy micaceous pottery
• Café Pasqual’s, 121 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa
Fe; (505) 983-9340, www.pasquals.com
• Brian Grossnickle Studios,
www.micaceouscookware.com
• Pat Lollar, www.patlollar.com
• Felipe Ortega, www.felipeortega.com
www.nmmagazine.com | AUGUST 2010 51
Bringing It Home HOW-TO SOUTHWEST FLAVOR
by KRISTEN DAVENPORT | photography by LOIS ELLEN FRANK
Cook the Native Way
in micaceous clay
continued from page 50
micaceous clay (i.e., clay that’s high in
mica). “It’s an unbelievably unique clay,”
Grossnickle says. Mica, a sparkly mineral,
is one of the planet’s greatest natural
conductors of heat. It’s also the name of
Grossnickle’s oldest daughter, a rather glittery little girl herself.
Some micaceous potters in the Southwest don’t intend their work to be used
as cookware, but instead as works of art.
Such pots can indeed be beautiful, but for
the most part, micaceous potters are in a
league of their own: Their art is meant for
the kitchen—for making frijoles, tajines,
and simmering soups.
Traditionally, after the pots were airdried, they were fired in giant bonfires of,
typically, juniper or piñon, which would
transform them from soft clay into hard
cookware and imprint their surfaces with
smoky whorls and ghosts. Grossnickle says
that using only the open-fire technique
results in the cracking of about 40 percent
of the pots. (A cracked pot won’t hold a
batch of juicy beans.) However, pots that
are first kiln-fired above 750 degrees, then
put into a wood pit to finish, have a 95
percent success rate.
But before I can fire my pot, I have to
finish shaping it. The following week I
drop in on another of Grossnickle’s classes,
this time at the Santa Fe Community
College, where I learn how to scrape and
sand. Scraping—to even out any low or
high points—is simple enough. Sanding is
a little bit (OK more than a little bit) hard
on the arm, but satisfying because it results
in a smooth, gleaming surface.
The final step before firing is polishing:
gently rub-rub-rubbing into the pot a
slip made of clay with a very high mica
content. Grossnickle recommends using
a smooth, polished stone like those found
at gem-and-mineral shops. The result is a
shimmery, richly brown vessel. After firing,
it sounds beautiful when gently clanked
with a wooden spoon—kitchen music.
This fall, I’m taking Brian Grossnickle’s
class for real. Just don’t tell my husband.
52 NEW MEXICO | AUGUST 2010
Master micaceous potter Felipe
Ortega began making bean pots when he
learned, as a young man on the Jicarilla
Apache Nation, that he liked beans only
when they’d been cooked in this traditional vessel. In the Apache language, he
says, there is a phrase about micaceous pottery, dahlikao gohnii, that translates roughly
to “it makes the beans taste sweet.” In
fact, Ortega tells me, micaceous cookware
makes almost everything taste better—
coffee, tea, rice, beans, spaghetti sauce.
If you’ve been conditioned to think
of Native American pots as only fragile,
expensive artworks, it’s a shift to accept
them as functional kitchen tools. The first
time you light a gas stove’s flame under
the bottom of a bean pot is a frightening
experience. (At $100 per quart, the fear
is probably justified.) But, as micaceous
potter Brian Grossnickle, Ortega’s former
apprentice, reminds me, these pots were
used by “roaming bands of Apaches” and
are hardier than they look. (Just the same,
I’ve seen Grossnickle’s kitchen, and his
micaceous pots have some nicks on the
edges. Perhaps cooking in clay requires
that we accept some imperfection.)
Although some micaceous potters make
lids (Grossnickle does not), the shape of
the bean pot is designed to keep the liquid
in the pot and thus prevent it from boiling
over, he says.
Tips for cooking in your new micaceous pots:
Cook anywhere. You can cook in mica-
ceous pots on any stovetop, in your oven,
or even atop an open fire. Before it came
to your kitchen, the pot was fired to at
least 750 degrees. It can take the heat.
So you don’t know beans?
In New Mexico, the cooking of pinto beans is a
topic that can get downright contentious.
There’s the faction that preaches: “Never
add salt to your beans before they’re fully
cooked, or they’ll be tough and inedible.”
And the group that declares: “Always add
salt before they cook, or they’ll be flavorless.”
And the group that insists: “Beans are the
ultimate low-calorie, vegetarian protein.”
Cook anything. Don’t limit yourself to
beans. Make soup, brisket, roast chicken,
oatmeal, or pumpkin-pie filling.
Tastes will change. Grossnickle suggests
giving up all other cookware for two weeks
and use only your micaware, and then
return to stainless steel or cast iron. “You’ll
taste the metals,” he says.
Let it soak in. A clay pot takes on the
flavors of what you cook in it. If you cook
a lot of hot, garlicky dishes, you might
consider having a second bean pot for, say,
your morning cinnamon oatmeal. Also,
beans can soak up the flavors of meals
previously made in your pot. (This can be
a good thing.)
Season it. Ask the potter how to season
your pot. Grossnickle suggests that the first
thing to cook in your pot should be rice.
The starch will help fill the pores of the
clay and ready it for use.
Washing is overrated. Don’t ever put your
micaceous pot in the dishwasher. Wash it
gently by hand using only a little soap.
Tough break. If your pot cracks the first time
you use it (it happens), call the potter. In
those circumstances, most will replace it.
Cut the fat. Micaceous clay is a naturally
nonstick surface. For instance, one recipe
we found requires you to “sweat” your
onions in the pot as a first step; instead,
just toss the chopped onions in the pot and
heat. (In other cookware, this step would
require oil.)
Use wooden utensils. It’s a cook’s instinct
to clank a spoon on the edge of the pot. To
prevent chipping, avoid metal spoons.
And the camp that proclaims: “Beans without bacon? Heresy!”
My parents grew up in New Mexico, as did I,
so I feel authorized to tell you that the best way
to cook beans is to put them in some water and
cook them very slowly, either on low heat or in
a slow cooker, for many hours. Period.
—Kristen Davenport
How do you cook your beans? Tell us on
New Mexico Magazine’s Facebook page.
RECIPES
Clay Pot Frijoles
New to cooking in clay? This basic bean-pot
recipe is easily adapted to your tastes.
2½ cups (about 1 pound) dried pinto
or bolita beans, rinsed, sorted
1 large onion, diced
4–5 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup diced salt pork or bacon
1 teaspoon dried epazote leaves, crumbled,
or 1 bag chamomile tea (intact)
3 tablespoons mild or hot Chimayó
red-chile powder
2 whole bay leaves
1½ teaspoons cumin powder
7–8 cups water or broth (beef, chicken,
or vegetable)
salt and pepper to taste
Put all ingredients in bean pot and
place on bottom rack of cold oven. (If
you’re cooking in something other than
a micaceous bean pot, put a lid on it.)
Heat oven to 450 degrees and cook beans
for 1½ hours. Carefully remove pot and
check seasoning; add more if necessary,
and return to hot oven. Reduce heat to
375 degrees and cook another 40 minutes
or until tender. Remove pot from oven,
re-season if necessary, cover, and let rest
10 minutes. Serve as side dish with fresh
tortillas, crema Mexicana or sour cream,
diced jalapeños, and crumbled cotija or
grated asadero cheese.
Serves 6–8.
www.nmmagazine.com | AUGUST 2010 53
Bringing It Home SOUTHWEST FLAVOR
Vegetarian Enchiladas
You can cook more than beans in your bean
pot. Potter Brian Grossnickle makes this
dish in his own kitchen. This recipe has been
refined by Lois Ellen Frank, culinary anthropologist, chef, photographer, and author of
Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations
(Ten Speed Press, 2002).
Green Chile and Tomato Sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium white sweet onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
13-ounce tub frozen green chiles (mild)
16-ounce jar Rancho de los Garcias
Green Chile Sauce
28-ounce can organic whole tomatoes
with basil, chopped
Enchiladas
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups white mushrooms, sliced
3 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 cups baby spinach, washed, cleaned
12 corn tortillas
1 cup cotija cheese, crumbled
2 cups mild cheddar cheese, grated
1
2
3
4
Sauce: In medium saucepan or three-quart
micaceous cooking pot, warm olive oil
over medium to high heat until hot but
not smoking. Add onions and sauté until
clear (about 2 minutes), stirring to prevent
burning. Add garlic, cook an additional
minute, then add green chiles and greenchile sauce. Stir. Add canned tomatoes
and stir again. Cook about 3 minutes,
stirring to prevent burning. Reduce heat
and simmer 10–15 minutes, until sauce has
reduced and tomato water is gone. Remove
from heat and set aside.
Enchiladas: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In large cast-iron skillet, heat olive oil
over medium to high heat until hot. Add
mushrooms and sauté 3 minutes, stirring
occasionally. Add zucchini and cook 2
minutes more. Add diced pepper and cook
another minute, stirring to ensure even
cooking. Add spinach and cook another
2 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Use about 5 ounces (a little more than
½ cup) of sauce to cover bottom of clay
casserole dish. Cover sauce with 4 tortillas.
54 NEW MEXICO | AUGUST 2010
5
Pour another 5 ounces of sauce atop
tortillas, then cover with half of sautéed
vegetables. Cover with ½ cup crumbled
cotija cheese. Add another layer of 4
tortillas, then 5 ounces of sauce, remaining
half of vegetables, and remaining ½ cup of
cotija cheese. Atop this layer last 4 corn
tortillas, cover with remaining sauce, and
top with grated cheddar.
Bake 45 minutes, until casserole
1) Sauté mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, and spinach in a cast-iron skillet.
2) In a casserole dish,
layer veggies, sauce, and
cotija cheese over corn
tortillas.
3) Add another layer of
tortillas, topped with veggies, sauce, and cheese.
Repeat.
4) Top the whole dish
with grated cheddar
cheese. Bake.
5) Slice and serve.
Note: The clay casserole
dish shown above is
micaceous pottery from
Mexico, available at Santa
Fe School of Cooking.
www.santafeschoolof
cooking.com
bubbles and cheese on top begins to turn
brown. Remove from oven and let rest.
Slice and serve.
Serves 6–8 as main course.
Kristen Davenport lives on a small farm in
rural Taos County, where she and her husband
grow garlic, potatoes, and other good stuff
for farmers markets. She writes about
agriculture and food for several magazines.
www.nmmagazine.com | AUGUST 2010 55