Secrets of oil pressing | Economic Times

Tamil Nadu is gearing up to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of VO Chidambaram Pillai. This pioneer of modern Indian shipping was jailed by the British for sedition. While imprisoned in Coimbatore, he was tied to a traditional oil press and made to turn it to extract oil. Kapalottiya Thamizhan, a 1961 Sivaji Ganesan film, shows Pillai dramatically made into a beast of burden. Oil presses have been worked by humans in other circumstances, like with slaves in the Roman Empire. But using prisoners was a British speciality, especially in the Andamans, where VD Savarkar was among the prisoners “yoked to a press that they turned until they produced 30 lbs of mustard oil”, wrote Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy in a 2001 article based on interviews with the last survivors of the jail. Historically, oil pressing has been done, like grain, with water and wind power, but animals are more common. Cattle, horses, donkeys, mules and camels have all been used to turn oil presses, blindfolded to stop them from feeling giddy. By using humans for this, the British were deliberately degrading their prisoners. Oil pressing seems to extract cruelty, to animals or humans, and perhaps unease at this, along with its messy nature, explains why oil mills feature so little in stories. The jolly flour miller is a common figure, but oil pressers are less spoken about.In Gerald Durrell’s Corfu books, he recalls how the peasants “would deliver their olives and depart from the press with all speed”, fearing the possible “evil eye” of the oil presser. Envy may have been involved as well. Oil pressing was one of the earliest sources of wealth. People may have made most of their food at home, even pounding grain in chakkis, but oil was obtained from outside (ghee and coconut oil, made from boiling butter or coconut milk, were exceptions). Oils stored in sealed earthen flasks were a concentrated and tradeable source of wealth. Michelle Phillipov in Fats: A Global History explains how “the olive created one of the foundational economies of the ancient world… At Knossos in Crete, oil was the king’s treasure and its export one of his major sources of revenue”. Knowing how to make good oil was a trade secret, which might explain why oil pressers are secretive. But one place to learn is KT Achaya’s Ghani: the Traditional Oil Mill of India. Achaya’s works are essential references for anyone writing on Indian food history, yet this is one of his best books and is curiously little-known. It was published by a specialist press abroad and has never had an Indian edition. Yet, the world of oil pressing he describes stretches back to Harappa, has been referenced in many ancient Indian texts and even attracted the attention of Mahatma Gandhi, who encouraged development of the Maganvadi model, which caused less stress to the animals. Achaya notes the many products pressed for oil in India, including mahua, sal, neem and karanja, as well as more common oilseeds. Each type had to be pressed differently to preserve their distinct flavours and physical properties, including uses for the leftover oilcake. All this is being forgotten with the advent of modern mechanical presses and solvent extraction, which create neutral tasting oils whose apparent health attributes we obsess about, but not their taste or cooking properties. Our lack of connection to oil puts us at the mercy of the international commodity trade and government policy, which periodically, like now, leaves us with shortages and soaring prices. We need to reclaim this knowledge; an Indian edition of Achaya’s book might be a good place to start.