‘Rasam’ which is unique to south Indian cuisine acquires a unique smell and flavour when prepared in an eeya sombu , a metal-coated vessel.

But the practice of preparing the dish in the vessel is fast becoming history with the younger lot questioning anything ancient and opting for fancy cookware.

“But that has not hit our business. There are people who continue to patronise the eeya sombu in this part of the country,” says R. Santosh Kumar, who runs his grandfather’s business – Sundaram Vilas EeyaPathira Kadai – jointly with his father at Kumbakonam.

The number of shops offering such vessels is far and few.

“There were about 14 eeya sombu making units, a decade ago. It has come down to three at present. Even these will vanish in course of time as the younger generation are not too keen to carry on the family business,” says Santosh.

He admits that he too was forced into the business by his father after graduation.

Santosh said: “I wanted to become a lawyer, but my father wanted me to run this family-business. Therefore I am here.”

On closure of the manufacturing units, he said “it involves hard labour. Every vessel is hand-made and no formal education is imparted for making these vessels. It takes 8 to 10 hours to make one sombu (vessel) and involves enormous patience.”So, is it worth all this trouble?

“Why not?” he asks. “We make decent profit. There are export enquiries, only we are unable to execute them as we do not have adequate trained manpower.”

Application of eeyam (metal coating) on the inside of brass and copper vessels used to be a well-known process. There were vendors who made a living out of this. This tribe has disappeared over time with the advent of stainless-steel cookware.

Coating

Asked if the metal-coating contains lead, Santosh said even brass vessels are coated with eeyam to prevent food poisoning. “If such a coating had lead content, why would people have opted for it? Further, in the olden days, the use of brass and copper utensils in cooking was common and that generation, by and large, led a healthy life.”

On sourcing of raw material for making the eeya sombu , he said: “This alloy of tin and other metals are mostly imported from Malaysia and sold through a Government quota system. A kg of the metal costs Rs 1,850 to Rs 2,000.”

There are some commonalities between goldsmiths and eeya sombu makers.

Both maintain that the end-product is hand-made, impose a charge for wastage and levy making charges, apart from fixing a selling rate and buy-back rate.

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