Traces of Two Cooking Methods Identified in Harappan Pottery

AHMEDABAD, INDIA—Analysis of fatty residues in pottery recovered from a burial in Surkotada, a Harappan site in northwestern India, indicates that people boiled and fried their food, according to a report in The Times of India. The site was occupied for a period of about 400 years, beginning about 4,100 years ago. Ahana Ghosh of the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar said that lipids were found on the rims of some of the pots and on the bases of others. “Our hypothesis says that this happened because of the process of boiling, during which the lipids traveled upwards and got lodged near the rim,” Ghosh said. “The concentration of lipids at the base of the pot indicates that frying at high temperature was also a cooking method that was used,” she added. The foods are thought to have been types of plants and fish or shellfish, Ghosh concluded. To read about a double burial uncovered at one of the largest Harappan cities, go to "A Plot of Their Own."