Form & Function

I was wandering round a shop in Hay-on-Wye when I spotted it, perched proudly on a box like a druidic paperweight – the Granite Spice Crusher. At first glance I thought it was a model of a prehistoric burial mound, or perhaps an entry-level chess piece for giants. Then I realised it was, in fact, the most honest piece of kitchenware I’d ever seen.

Most pestles and mortars are exercises in futility – shallow bowls designed by sadists where a single peppercorn can stage an escape worthy of Colditz. You spend half an hour chasing it round like some deranged Tom after Jerry, only to end up with aching wrists and barely a whisper of crushed spice. But this lump? This magnificent lump? The pestle actually fits the mortar. Tight. No gaps, no gaps means no chase, and no chase means the peppercorn dies swiftly and with dignity.

It’s brutal, really. There’s no pretence at elegance. No smooth curves to stroke absent-mindedly while the pasta boils. It’s just two chunks of rock that could have been nicked from a Neolithic dig, now tasked with teaching cumin who’s boss. Form and function here have finally called a truce – no frills, no frippery, just a clunk and a crunch.

I left the shop without buying it, but it’s been haunting me ever since. Not because I need another gadget, but because it radiates a truth too often ignored in design – sometimes the answer really is a great bloody rock.