Enredadera: raw mesquite honey in a hand-painted vessel

In brief

• Origin: honey from beekeepers in Jalisco, Mexico. Vessel cast and painted by hand in Santa María Canchesdá, State of Mexico.
• Contents: raw monofloral mesquite honey. Ingredients: honey.
• Material: high-fired glazed ceramic vessel with lid, painted freehand. No two alike.
• Edition: numbered edition of 700. Each vessel carries its own number; numbers are not reissued.

The mesquite blooms for a few weeks in the dry months, and not every year is generous. Beekeepers in that part of Jalisco move their hives to be there when it opens. What the bees carry back in those weeks is the entire harvest.

The bee on the front of this vessel stands up from the surface. The vine around her is the bloom she worked, drawn with a brush that got no second chance. Seven hundred pieces carry her, each one numbered, and the numbers are not reissued. The number is what makes the piece that arrives unrepeatable: it belongs to whoever opens it and to no one else.

The town

Santa María Canchesdá has 1,898 residents (INEGI, 2020) and sits at about 2,543 metres, in the Mazahua country of the State of Mexico. Pottery there is the second livelihood after farming. The Dutch anthropologist Dick Papousek spent nine years among these potters, from 1967 to 1976, and the way the brush is held still has not been written down. It is learned by watching.

Each vessel is cast, fired, painted, fired again. The second firing takes the painting under the glaze, past the reach of a dishcloth. No stencil is used at any point, which is why the vine on one piece never matches the vine on the next.

The honey

Pale, closer to white than to amber. Vanilla and almond first, caramel behind, a little wood under all of it. About four fifths of it is sugar; fructose alone is close to 40%, and water 15 to 18%. It sets early and sets fine: after some weeks it spreads like butter instead of pouring. That is proof, not a defect. Warm water under the vessel loosens it again. Boiling water ruins it.

Aged sheep's cheese takes it well. So does Gouda, which has caramel of its own. Blue cheese takes very little. Three parts honey to one part warm water, by weight, makes the syrup for a Bee's Knees.

One territory

In March 2023 the European Commission sampled 320 honey shipments at EU borders. It found 147 of them suspect, 46%, cut with syrups from rice, wheat or beet. In the previous exercise the figure had been 14%. Hiding where a honey actually came from was among the methods.

Monofloral has a threshold: 45% of the pollen from one species, counted under a microscope. This one comes from a single territory and is not cut with anything.

Afterwards

The honey runs out. The bee does not. People keep salt in these, or rings, or matches, or nothing at all. Santa María Canchesdá, where the vessel is made

Care

Wash it by hand, warm water, mild soap. Not the dishwasher, not the microwave. Do not feed honey to infants under one year of age.

If it arrives broken, or you change your mind

If it arrives broken, send a photo and we replace it or refund it. Thirty days from delivery to return it, unused and sealed in its original packaging. Write to us with your order number and we send a prepaid label. Refund policy

Product information

• Hand-painted ceramic. Numbered edition of 700; each vessel carries its own number.
• Cast, high-fired, painted freehand. No two alike.
• Ingredients: Honey.
• Product of Mexico.
• Store at room temperature, away from direct sunlight.
• Crystallisation is natural in raw mesquite honey and is not a defect.
• Warning: do not feed honey to infants under one year of age.