Jorge Gaviria’s mission is to bring Mexican cuisine back to basics. Its online marketplace, Masienda, sells the calcium hydroxide needed for nixtamalization, comals for cooking tortillas, and now stocks molcajetes handmade in Puebla for grinding corn. As beautiful as Olmec sculptures, these mortars and pestles are made from natural basaltic lava rock by carvers called canteros, who maintain a craft with millennia of tradition. The molcajetes are well over 20 pounds and have a capacity of three cups. Keep one on display, such as the classic Italian marble mortar and pesto for making pesto, and use it to produce salsas, guacamole, Indian masalas, Vietnamese broken rice, and, yes, pesto.
Basalt Molcajete, $95 including shipping, masienda.com.
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