What is Micaceous Cookware?
Micaceous cookware has been utilized in the southwest for over eight-hundred years. It is a traditional style of pottery using a coil and scrape method developed by the Apache Indians. This technique, with lots of practice, can achieve very thin but even walls and is very durable for cooking. The mica content of micaceous clay is nearly forty percent. Mica, one of mother nature's best conductors of heat, absorbs the thermal shock of being placed on a hot stovetop. As a result, the high mica content allows micaceous cookware to hold heat extremely well — food will still be hot if left covered for an hour or more. Food cooked in micaceous pottery takes on an earthiness unlike any other cookware, making it true organic cookware.
Very few clays on this planet have the functionality or utilitarianism of micaceous clay. Some of the traditional vessels used millennia ago include bean pots (still widely used today), seed storage pots, cups, bowls, corn bowls, water carriers, and ceremonial vessels.
The micaceous clay I use today for my cookware is carefully hand dug and hand processed from the mountains of northern New Mexico. No chemicals or additives are added during the process, thus a true earthenware. The area where the clay is dug from was once used by Apache potters eight hundred years ago. The utmost care and respect are used when harvesting clay from this area.
Micaceous pottery was and still is a wood fired process, usually in open depressions in the earth using bark from local pine trees. The black "fire clouds" on the pots occur during the firing when wood rests against the piece causing a spot reduction. These fire clouds are random in occurrence and add to the uniqueness of each piece of hand built micaceous cookware.