“The green grass you can see far and wide
The tall mountain the nature’s pride!
The running river so serene while noisy is the sea!
For all the AI generated images, nature is the most beautiful you see!”
The device was a constant fixture in every house those days! Especially in the south! Do you know that a crocodile also uses the same technique to ‘grind’ food!?
Intrigued!?
Read on!
Yeah do not worry! Without much delay let me tell you that the answer is the famous Grinding stone!
Of course now most houses have either a Grinder or maybe just a Mixie; those days, the grinding stone was the way to go!
Even now many places in Kerala and Tamil Nadu still use the Grinding stone and there are people who can vouch that the chutney or the Flour made with the grinding stone has that ‘special’ taste!
It is like the rice cooked in an open vessel versus the cooker! We of course are so used to any rice, but apparently the open vessel cooked rice is much more tasty!
I still remember how my mother used to start grinding for the Dosa or the Idly and I can swear that they used to be so soft and fluffy! I do not remember the taste of any gravy or chutney grinded by the stone grinder but my father often used to say that the real taste is the ones made or grinded by the stone!
Later on of course with the coming of the Mixie, the flour or the chutney was done in minutes! The haste in making and eating made it sure that no one ever bothered about the ‘actual’ taste! So in weekends or special occasions my mother used to use the grinding stone. Even that got replaced soon enough by the Grinder which was more or less trying to get the ‘taste’ of stone grinding with the ease of a mixie!
It was of course reserved for big loads only which of course was weekends or rare days since the whole procedure of cleaning the grinder was a big chore! The mixie was simply too easy!
But the whole process of grinding two stones with the things in between was an art! There were two distinct types of such stones and even these two had a pair! The one which was round with a hole in the centre was mainly for more liquid or flowing grinding like the dosa or idly four while the flat stone was mainly for the semi solid or gravy like stuff like the chutney or ‘chammandi’ as they say in Kerala! Each of these had two stones called the chinna kalla or small stone and the periya kalla or the big stone!
The round one had the second stone in the hole itself with some space in between! The whole process was not easy to do and there was a learning curve. Frequently in between you had to stuff more solid stuff along with the rhythm! If you miss then your hands would be crushed with no mercy! Children were never allowed to use this contraption! Even the small stone which had to be lifted and cleaned was heavy and huge! Only the strong person of the family would lift and clean it!
The way the dal or the chilly or the small onions or the coconut used to get crushed without mercy was fascinating to say the least!
Now of course the little mixie does the job without much fuss! Of course how the grinding stone made its way to the kitchen is historical but apparently even some animals use this grinding to grind their food!
The animal is Crocodile!
Apparently throughout their lives crocodiles ingest small stones known as gastroliths, these stones remain in the first section of the crocodiles’ stomach and are thought to work in the same way as a bird’s gizzard, mechanically grinding up the contents!
I guess the stones add some natural flavour to the food which is why it tastes good! Then again it take effort to grind with the stone so maybe that is the added flavour! The two stones working either side by side or parallel to each other used to create flavour magic! Parallel reminds me of the pioneer of parallel cinema Shyam Benegal!
Now soak some rice and dal for the dosa and sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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