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Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 92. © American Folklore Society 2018

Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice: Cooking with Earth and Smoke

By: Katherine L. Turner

Photos: Katherine L. Turner and C. Julián Idrobo

First Life

The round belly settled in the embers and blackened by smoke is a constant on 
the hearth. A few pieces of wood are added, growing and rekindling the greying 
coals. The contents slowly churn, traveling with the bubbles to the surface and 
sinking back in steady rhythm. Meat cooks slowly rendering it tender, and 
dried corn, called mote, rehydrates and softens. There is always a pot of mote 
cradled at the edge of the fire. In water or milk squashes, legumes and tubers 
are stewed. In a dry, hot bottom deep purple corn kernels spotted with white 
are stirred to make tostada. Many dishes are made this way, with the properties 
of the clay pot mixing with the wood smoke to shape the textures, flavors, and 
mold the life history of the food. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 93. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Center: Minds and Agency

“We would sit on the ground, with my mother and her clay pot. Us around her. 
The pot of mote in the center.”1 Cooking leaves an echo, an imprint of the labor, 
the action of hands and minds2—that have imagined and brought into being the 
dish, a meal. An entanglement of human and non-human agencies: people, clay, 
plant, charcoal. The pot must be tempered prior to use. Some cure a new pot by 
resting it in a coat of beef lard and corn flour; others by boiling it with flour and 
water. This seals the pot and ensures a longer life. “A few small pieces of wood, 
and the pots will boil all day,” they don’t burn, they hold the heat, they turn the 
food soft, imbue a delicate texture, a rich flavor. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 94. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Birth

The vessel is made of clay, sand, and water, built slowly, adding pieces to 
one another growing higher, gaining shape and being smoothed: a seamless 
composite. Rounded at the bottom, not to rest on a table, but to find stability 
in coals and ash. Clay gathered close by or brought from farther away affords 
different colors and different properties. The potters know where to go. Pots 
are made only in the dry season when drying and firing can be done properly. 
Completed, the vessels are fired in simple kilns with animal dung and urine to 
give heat and color to the hardening clay. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 95. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Hands

A vocation and a livelihood, often passed on parent to child. In a small town, La 
Calama, an elderly brother and sister are pot makers. Their father taught them, 
they learned; all their siblings did. Neither makes very many now. They are 
old, the clay cold and hard on their hands. A grandson explains, “Grandfather 
now only makes them to order.” His great-grandfather’s remaining pots, 
alongside those of his grandfather, live in a special room. Families like theirs of 
generational potters are becoming fewer. It takes grandfather a week to make 
three pots. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 96. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Search

It is hard to find clay cookware now. Few people know how to make it. It is 
expensive at the Campesino Market in the City of Tarija. “Before it was a luxury 
to buy aluminum, Teflon. That is to say it was only the rich people who could. 
Now everything is metal. Now it is more of a luxury to buy a clay pot than an 
aluminum one.” Now clay vessels are expensive. “They are, and more than that 
they don’t last . . . . This one has lasted well—ten years or more.”



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 97. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Practice

“Now we put the mote in iron.” It is the fastest thing in the pot now. “Faster and 
more practical.” When possible, the flash of ignition and the heat of a gas flame. 
“Current generations aren’t accustomed to using these basics like wood fire 
and clay because they don’t have the knowledge.” It is the old people who buy 
the clay pots. And the flavor, do you miss it? Yes, I miss it. “No one continues 
to make pots,” the grandson explains, “because society discriminates against 
them.” 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 98. © American Folklore Society 2018

Plastic Barrels and Plastic Bottles

Wine: a tradition in the Valley going back to the Spanish conquest. Grape vines 
brought to give the blood of Christ, the fruit’s juice fermented in great vessels 
of clay tightly sealed. A sweet wine, mingled with tannins and aromas of earth. 
One family, a small sign outside the home marked “vino patero.”3 They are 
artisanal winemakers. They have a room for wine making lined with a dozen 
pots, too large to wrap your arms around. One is a hundred years old—a family 
inheritance, shown proudly. Another vino patero maker, her clay vessels 
bought from her mother-in-law, carefully kept; they are hard to replace. Many 
have replaced them though or bypassed them all together. Plastic barrels are 
recommended.4 More hygienic, the authorities claim. Vino patero is illicit. 
Not real wine. It is served in gourds from smaller wide-mouthed clay pots and 
on Corpus Christi in the center of a hollowed-out tuber, ajipa (Pachyrhizus 
ahipa).5 These ways of serving are the old ways. Special ways, not the glass 
bottles and long-stemmed glasses of the industrial, global wine culture. Lightly 
fermented drinks, alojas and chichas, also circulate this way at the markets and 
fairs. Women wheeling large flat carts, a huge clay pot in the center, in it peanut 
or barley aloja. These are also made by boiling slowly in clay over the fire. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 99. © American Folklore Society 2018



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 100. © American Folklore Society 2018

The Vendor

She brings her pots first by donkey. Two hours to reach the road. Next by truck 
eight hours. She brings clay cooking pots, jugs, and urns, huge vessels for chicha 
making, tiny toy pots smaller than your fist for children. The largest are 150 
Pesos Bolivianos, the toys 50 centavos.6 Most fall somewhere in between. She 
explains how they are made. Beautiful and intricate designs can be added, but 
those don’t sell. Too much time, the price too high. She comes for the annual 
Festival of San Lorenzo, the town’s patron saint, and makes pots for months to 
bring. Mentioned by many as one of the best, one of the last, places to find good 
clayware. Three or four vendors make the annual journey. There are few potters 
like her. Few who still depend on dirt cheap pots, alongside cultivating their 
fields and tending their herds. 

  
Second Life

Time, a fall, a slip, a slow crack. Clumsy hands, heavy weight, hard ground. 
So may end the first life. Sometimes the second is brief. Disposal, reduction, 
pulverization. Other times, however, second life can be long and glorious. Life 
on a shelf or in a corner. Still cherished, if ignored. Or pieces bound together 
and reinforced with wire or string. Earth, roots, and new life. Or something 
simpler: a nest. A place in the garden. 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 101. © American Folklore Society 2018

Re(dis)covery

Loss in time, in labor, in knowledge, in skill, in purpose. Aluminum, tin, iron: 
now cheaper, now ubiquitous at the market and in the kitchen. Light, flat 
bottomed, and ready for a gas stove and modern foods. Quick foods—rice, 
pastas, a chicken soup, frying oil—ready for fast cooking and eager eating. But 
the slow boiling, the flavor of clay and smoke linger. 

On a Sunday, urbanites travel. Going forth from the city in their cars or on the 
bus—a small van filled with passengers. Seeking out a creole hen soup or one of 
the thick stews called ajis, picantes, saice, and ranga, of ground yellow or red 
chili peppers with beef, tripe, or pig feet. Prepared by someone who knows how, 
made with ingredients from the countryside, the campo, made the old way and 
cooked in clay. Flavored with smoke. These, they say, are real, more authentic, 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 102. © American Folklore Society 2018

more natural. They taste better. 

Many roadside stands, many front rooms with simple tables and benches, many 
rural women and their families who earn their living cooking and serving from 
hardened clay. Fairs, festivals, and celebrations are spaces to congregate. To 
sell chancho a la olla—a stewed pork called “pork to the pot.” Drink chicha or 
aloja served with a gourd dipper from a wide clay mouth. A few restaurants as 
well catering to the day trippers, the small middle class, the wealthier families, 
the nostalgia for flavors, the mingling of past and present. Kitchens designed 
especially for open fires, clay pots, and the milieu of agency and materials. A 
slow simmering, a continuity, a resurgence.

Background and Acknowledgments

This essay draws on twelve months of fieldwork in the Central Valley of Tarija, 
Bolivia, in 2012 and 2013, on edible biocultural heritage in rural territorial 
development processes. Data were gathered through multiple methods 
including extensive semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, visits 
to homes, participant observation at fairs, festivals, markets, and restaurants, 
and surveys with vendors at public markets and fairs. Change and continuity 
in regional and household agri-food production, exchange, and consumption 
were the focus of the research, and clay cookware and fermentation vessels 
were a subtle yet recurring theme entwining personal histories, contemporary 
economies, food practices, and tensions over tradition, identity, and modernity.

The personal stories, feelings, and reflections surrounding the role of clay 
pots in contemporary Bolivian campesino culinary practice are an example 
of knowledge and experience that are often muted in academic and public 
discourse. While further details on the research methods and larger study 
can be found in Turner (2016) and other academic journal articles (including 
Turner et al. 2016; Turner, Davidson-Hunt, and Desmarais 2017), we wanted 
to explore this aspect of our work through a creative ethnography format. 
By interweaving images, quotes, and descriptive text, we believe the photo 
essay expresses an intimacy and nuance around the changing relations with 
traditional materials, such as clay, in ways that a regular paper format does not 
capture. 

We are deeply grateful to all in the Central Valley who made this research 
possible and shared their stories, experiences, and likenesses with us. Turner 



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 103. © American Folklore Society 2018

made return visits to key interviewees, research participants, organizations, 
and local authorities in the Central Valley in 2016. She provided Spanish-
language summary documents and copies of publications to individuals and 
organizations. Additionally, towards the end of fieldwork in 2013, she printed 
copies of photographs taken with many research participants and their 
families as small thank you gifts. Besides the Central Valley individuals and 
families involved in this research, we thank the following organizations for 
their collaboration and support: JAINA–Comunidad de Estudios, RIMISP–
Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural, Asociación de Turismo de 
San Lorenzo, and Gobernación Sub-Sección San Lorenzo. We are also grateful 
to Ingeniera Fidelia Romero Lopez, Profesora Leonela Valdez, and Marina 
Pastrana for their collaboration, patience, and many insights and helpful 
suggestions during data gathering.

This research was approved by the University of Manitoba Joint-Faculty 
Research Ethics Board. Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and 
Humanities Research Council of Canada (IP Iain Davidson-Hunt research 
grants SSHRC 410-2010-1818 and 890-2011-0113; and SSHRC Joseph-Armand 
Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, Doctoral Scholarship to Author 
767-2011-0128), and the Canadian International Development Agency and 
Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada’s Students for Development 
Program (Individual Internship Award to Turner). 

Notes

(1) Quotations are from interviews conducted by the authors in the Central 
Valley of Tarija, Bolivia. We have left them anonymous to protect participants 
privacy and confidentiality. 

(2) Labor as a dialectic process of hands and minds comes from Wolf (1982:75). 

(3) Patero from the Spanish verb patear meaning to stomp or kick, referring to 
the process of crushing grapes with the feet.

(4) The Bolivian National Viticulture Centre and other capacity building organi-
zations recommend plastic barrels to artisanal winemakers.

(5) See Advisory Committee on Technology Innovation Board on Science 
and Technology for International Development National Research Council 
(1989:39).



Turner, Katherine L. 2017. Clay Pots in Bolivian Campesino Culinary 
Practice. Digest: a Journal of Foodways and Culture 6: 104. © American Folklore Society 2018

(6) At the time of research, 150 BOB was around 22 USD and 0.50 BOB was 
around 0.07 USD. 

References Cited

Advisory Committee on Technology Innovation Board on Science and Technol-
ogy for International Development National Research Council. 1989. Lost Crops 
of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide 
Cultivation. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Turner, Katherine L. 2016. Feeding Local Economies: Bolivia’s Edible Biocul-
tural Heritage and Rural Territorial Development. Doctoral dissertation. Winni-
peg, MB: University of Manitoba. http://hdl.handle.net/1993/31954.

Turner, Katherine L., Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, and Annette Aurélie Desmarais. 
2017. “Agrobiodiversity, Rural Transitions and Households Experiences of Glo-
balised Change: A Case Study from the Central Valley of Tarija, Bolivia.” Rural 
Landscapes: Society, Environment, History 4 (1): 1-24.

Turner, Katherine L., Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, and 
Ian Hudson. 2016. “Creole Hens and Ranga-Ranga: Campesino Approaches to 
Biocultural Resource-Based Development Strategies in the Central Valley of 
Tarija, Bolivia.” Agriculture 6 (41): 1–33.

Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, California: 
University of California Press.


