This morning my friend WeeRascal asked on Twitter… Mortar and Pestle or Pestle and Mortar? and my answer was mortar and pestle as that was how I was brought up hearing it said. But my English friend Annie Bennett says she has always called it a pestle and mortar, while admitting that “we Brits have some strange habits as you know…”

I remember recently wincing when on a cooking programme – I think it was Jamie Oliver though it may have been Rick Stein – it was referred to as a pestle and mortar. It just sounded so… well, backwards!

Thinking about it logically, you first put your food item into the mortar before using the pestle; alphabetically the mortar wins out too.

What do you say?