When the last millet planted sprouted and the soybeans emerged from the ground, holding up two fat watercress, with a little yellow bud exposed in the middle of the watercress, the Qingque tribe's first grinding was finally declared a success.
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Not far from the stone flower bed built by Han Cheng, another one-meter-high stone platform was built.
A stone slab of about one square meter was placed on the stone platform. In the center of the stone slab was a stone mill recently made by the Qingque tribe.
The stone mill at the bottom is located on cement made of plant ash and is firmly built there.
This is to prevent it from rotating together with the grinding disc above when grinding something.
Around the stone mill, ten centimeters wide from the stone mill, a 'ridge' about ten centimeters high was built with cement and small stones.
There is a water outlet at the lowest edge of the 'ridge'.
This is to prevent the ground soy milk from scattering.
People who pay attention to their stone mills will not do this. The bottom door of their stone mills is directly cut out of the large stone slab and is integrated with the stone slab.
The outer part of the stone slab is chiselled into "gullies and ridges" for collecting soy milk and the like.
The Qingque tribe currently has limited tools, and the wood masonry technology is not mature enough. The most important thing is that Han Cheng and others have dried up waiting to eat tofu, so they replaced this time-consuming project with cement.
Already.
After confirming that the surrounding cement was completely dry, I used a few buckets of water to thoroughly clean the stone mill and the stone slabs around it, and finally started grinding tofu.
The early morning sunlight in early summer spreads through the emerald green bamboo in the flower bed, leaving a tiny patch of light on the wet stone mill.
In the cool air, Han Cheng held a pottery bowl in his left hand and scooped out a bowl of something from the pottery pot placed on the stone platform.
The bowl is filled with two-thirds of water and one-third of the soybeans that have been soaked for more than a day and are completely saturated with water.
The bowl you are holding is brought close to the top of the grinding eye of the stone mill, tilt it slightly, and the water enters the grinding eye. After the water enters the grinding eye, the soaked soybeans are revealed.
While doing this, Han Cheng's right hand was not idle, holding the wooden handle of the stone mill and turning his arm around and around.
After the soybeans pass through the grinding eye and enter the middle of the two grinding fans, grinding becomes easier.
The stone mill rotates in circles, and the soybean grains that enter the inside are squeezed and ground into fine foam by the rough stone mill, which appears from all sides of the stone mill, and then slowly slides down along the stone mill.
The white soy milk and some bean dregs were mixed together and slid into the cement groove around the stone mill.
After more and more gathered together, they began to flow towards the lowest gap, and finally formed a white line, falling into the clay pot placed below, stirring up some white foam.
The slightly cool air is filled with the smell of raw soy milk, which is very familiar, just like the smell of grinding tofu during the Chinese New Year when I was a kid.
The difference is that things and people have already changed, and they have completely become two worlds...
A novel thing like a grinder can easily attract people who have never done anything like this before.
After Han Cheng ground half of the soaked beans, he stared at the grinder for a long time. Wu, who was eager to try, finally couldn't bear it anymore.
He tentatively spoke and expressed to Han Cheng his desire to grind.
Han Cheng smiled, but he had forgotten what attracted people to stone mills.
Immediately, he handed the bowl to Wu's hand. Han Cheng stood aside and handed over the grinding of beans to Wu.
This is not a very demanding job, and pouring more or less water into the grinding eye does not matter much, so Han Chenggong just stood aside and watched without giving any guidance.
The first millstone of the Qingque Tribe was just a small mill with a diameter of 30 centimeters. It was not heavy, and it did not feel heavy when used as a shaman.
When Wu first took over these tasks from Han Cheng, Wu's body was slightly tense and his movements seemed a little stiff. After grinding three bowls of beans, his movements were already very skillful.
After all, this is really not such a difficult job.
After grinding the beans, Han Cheng asked someone to get some clean water and pour bowl after bowl into the grinding eye.
While pouring, the stone mill is turned while turning, in order to wash away all the remaining bean dregs and soy milk.
Firstly, there is no waste, and secondly, you can wait until the next time you use it and spend less time scrubbing.
Han Cheng, Wu, Senior Brother and others carried the ground soy milk and walked aside, where a two-meter-high shelf had been set up.
There is a crossbeam in the middle of the shelf, and a rope is tied to the middle of the crossbeam.
A stick one and a half centimeters thick is tied under the rope.
This stick passes through the middle of two flat, overlapping sticks.
Underneath the stick is a big lump that has been rested.
The big lump blocks the wooden stick placed horizontally below, preventing the two overlapping wooden sticks from slipping from the air.
Two overlapping, one-meter-long wooden sticks have a hole drilled at both ends, and a corner of a square piece of linen is inserted into each hole.
The corners of the linen are tied tightly here to form a sling.
He found a large, clean pottery basin and placed it under the sling. Han Cheng poured a jar of soy milk into the sling.
Then he motioned to the senior brother to do the same as him, hold the two ends of the two overlapping wooden sticks, and began to swing the sling from left to right.
The soy milk wrapped in the sling swayed left and right as Han Cheng and his senior brother moved, and some of the slightly yellowish white soy milk fell into the large pottery basin placed below.
The reason why there is such a procedure is because in addition to soy milk, there is also a lot of bean dregs after grinding.
This step is to separate the bean dregs from the soy milk. To put it bluntly, it is filtering.
The linen with fine mesh woven by the Qingque Tribe is just right for this purpose.
After filtering the soy milk in several pots, the big pot under the sling was almost full.
There was only a piece of bean dregs left in the sling.
Han Cheng did not take out the bean dregs immediately, but added half a can of water into it and hung it for a while.
There is no way, there are too few beans at this time, so we can only operate based on the principle of making more soy milk, so as to make more soy milk.
After hanging it again, Han Cheng took out the bean dregs, but he was not willing to throw them away. This stuff is extremely nutritious feed.
In ancient tofu shops, animals such as pigs and donkeys were usually raised.
Because they eat well, they are much fatter than ordinary people after feeding them.
When there is a shortage of food, bean dregs will be transformed into a kind of food. It is not uncommon to eat bean dregs.
Han Cheng was naturally reluctant to throw it away.
