The earliest steel mill in memory is located in the second production team of Dongtou Village. At that time, an adobe house was connected to the east of the three cowsheds in the team site, and the steel mill was arranged in this single house. That old universal electric mill, driven by a motor, mainly grinds corn grits, dried yam noodles and miscellaneous bean noodles.
At that time, there was no roller mill for processing wheat flour in the village. At that time, the villagers could hardly eat much white flour, because at that time, the wheat yield was very low and little wheat was planted. Wheat flour is precious flour and rice. Wheat milling still depends on ancient stone mills and stone mills.
The appearance of steel mills has brought gratifying changes to people's traditional lifestyle, which not only liberated people from the intense work of pushing a roller to grind, but also saved people a lot of time. The grinding surface of universal steel can be divided into rough and fine machining methods. Sometimes, the householder will send some wheat to the mill, and the miller will change it to flour and rice for processing, so the whole wheat flour can't be ground into wheat bran. This whole wheat flour is a little divergent. Although the cooked rice has a refreshing smell of wheat, it tastes like wheat bran. Even if it is squeezed into jiaozi, it will not be tough, and it is not as strong as the flour ground by a stone mill.
Traditional stone mill and stone mill process wheat, the wheat bran will be roughly screened off, and the flour will be fine, firm and firm, unlike the high temperature generated during electric mill processing, which will burn the elasticity of the flour. Therefore, the flour ground by traditional stone mill has the original ecological taste of wheat, sticky and soft, and the hand-made flour is constantly pulled. After cooking, the taste is smooth and delicious, which is much more delicious than the flour processed by electric mill.
Later, the flour processing of the second team was cancelled and changed to the big team mill, not far from the west of the second team. During this period, a new grinding machine, single roller mill, was added to separate flour from bran. The mill was placed in a west room on Dongzhuang Road, south of Hu Jiajia Road. I remember grinding there for several years when I was a teenager. Later, the Westinghouse that grinded the surface began to collapse from south to north, and the northernmost mill moved away before it collapsed.
The relocated mill was moved to an idle old house in the north west of Cross Street, belonging to the seventh and eighth production teams to grind flour. Soon, the factory closed. The specific reason is unknown, which may be caused by not making money or other things. I still remember that the production team used the universal mill to process a large number of sweet potato slices transplanted in spring. Grind sweet potato slices to make dough powder. After the dough powder is dried, it is processed into dry powder strips through many processes such as boiling in a large pot, leaking powder and drying.
Later, a family near the former site of the village east third team opened a mill, which was originally owned by the fourth team. Later, it was contracted to an individual and sold to his family. This flour processing shop has also been open for several years. At that time, because the miller was eager to get rich as soon as possible, regardless of professional ethics, many miller complained that he was out. Later, it was replaced by a mill on the south side of Cross Street. After a few years, I closed down and moved. Then it was replaced by the Luxi family in Nantou, which was in the late 1980s. This family started to process corn and wheat, but later stopped grinding flour, and only used universal mill to process coarse grains such as corn. The task of processing wheat flour is mainly completed by a new mill east of Nantou Road. Later, the wheat processing was changed to a new type of double mill made in Henan, which had fast grinding speed and good flour quality. The manufacturer is also responsible for assembly. My village also went to a batch of double mills. After grinding for a year or two, large flour mills in neighboring villages began to open one after another, and people began to change their faces. There are fewer and fewer people grinding flour, and the wheat processing in the village soon stopped, leaving only one corn processing point. After entering the new century, the corn processing factory in our village began to close down, and the miller went out to work, so the processing task of corn grits was undertaken by two mills in the neighboring village in the south.
In the past, two mills in the neighboring village in the south were located not far from the street center. One faces the street, and the other is located 34 meters west of the street center. A few years ago, I loved going to the old man's head mill on the street, mainly because I was close to the street and gradually became familiar with the miller. And occupy a good position in the street. However, in the last six months, the mill basically closed down, occasionally processing some chicken feed and pig feed, and the old machinery and equipment for milling rice failed to be repaired. The miller is old. He is over eighty years old. None of his sons advocated that he should engage in rice noodle processing again. The old grinder is still busy, doing some sporadic grinding work to kill his leisure time, and his business is gradually deserted.
The business of that family on the west side of the street center is very good, but now there is no competitor, and the business is even more prosperous. The miller of this family is now 60 years old, and the couple have been processing rice noodles together in the mill. Business is booming, hospitality is enthusiastic, technology is exquisite, and the professional expertise of grinding flour and rice is great, attracting many guests. Milled rice from far and near came here, and returned satisfied, and its reputation spread far and wide. Even some guests in Linxian County have driven dozens of miles to grind noodles here, mainly for their green and impurity-free pure grain processing and health.
The name of this family's miller is Hongwu, and its name is homophonic with Zhu Yuanzhang's founding year "Hongwu" in Ming Dynasty. So the first impression of this name is very deep. His home should be the longest grinding time in all neighboring villages. According to him, it has been forty years. I remember that when I was a teenager, I went to this neighboring village to grind noodles. He was the one who grinded noodles. Because of years of grinding and smart people, they are recognized as grinding experts in small mills.
This shrewd farmer is familiar with rural electricians, machinery, planting and breeding, and has his own set of knowledge and views on world human physics. Perhaps it is the reason why practice makes true knowledge. He is very skilled and accurate in grinding flour. Besides being familiar with the processing of rice flour feed, he is also good at aquaculture. His yard is also a small farm. Pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigeons and other birds and animals have settled in the small courtyard, which has produced many auxiliary economic benefits. He and his wife are both diligent farmers, and their children are separated now, but there are always several growing children in their yard who get together and are inseparable. These regular people are the small owners in this yard. All kinds of small toys, baby carriages, skateboards and other little things that children like are placed in the irrelevant corner of the yard. Schoolbags and exercise books also accompany the children to occupy a suitable position in the yard. When I came to this small yard to grind flour and rice, I always felt that the yard was full of warm and lovely breath.
Years later, on the 16th day of the first month, I brought more than 30 kilograms of corn to grind here. Just after the Lantern Festival in the morning, but unlike usual, as soon as we approached the hutong where the mill was located, there was a grinding sound coming into the eardrum. This rare silence today shows that most families are not short of rice and noodles. Just after the Spring Festival, there are really not many households like me who come to cook a meal in a hurry. I would also like to invite my uncle from the Geophysical Exploration Bureau in Xushui District, Baoding City to bring some peeled corn grits from his hometown back to the city to cook porridge or steam corn, so as to improve the food, as if returning to nature. Because of this filial piety, I was in a hurry to come on the sixteenth day of the first month.
The slightly clean courtyard door dodged, and at the moment when the two-wheeled tram marched to the front of the yard, the barking of dogs and the singing of geese were sweet, reminding the householder that someone was coming. In the past two years, the pigsty in the west wall of the south wall was crowded with pigs and sows. At this time, no more snoring and fighting cries of pigs were heard, and no more screaming of pigs to eat milk. At this time, I saw that it was stuffed with poultry and homing pigeons.
There are dozens of domestic Chai chickens in the pigsty on the south wall, and the roof is covered with plastic sheets to keep warm. There are several cages in the pigsty near the western wall, which are organically combined with the cages, and dozens of pigeons are covered with silk screens. Pigeons have different varieties, basically belonging to domestic pigeons, or there is a larger variety, presumably a hybrid offspring of domestic pigeons and diwang meat pigeons. Pigeons' feathers are pure white, tile gray, Liangzi, fish scales, pink and miscellaneous hairs, while tile gray pigeons are the majority. Pigeons are chasing and playing leisurely in the paradise where they belong, and their cries are endless.
Not far from the pigeon house is a kennel, where an adult yellow dog stands and barks to welcome visitors. In the main room of four ordinary houses in the north, there is a two-stool-high concrete balcony in front, and a convertible in the west and south, which contains the universal running-in matching three-phase motor and weighing platform scale for processing feed. There are three east rooms facing west on the east side of the courtyard, which can be reached without a partition wall. There is a mill that processes rice noodles.
Handwritten Spring Festival couplets are posted at the door of the paper mill. At first glance, it was written by an old middle school teacher twenty miles away from Linxian County in the north. Last year, it was this middle school teacher who introduced the Spring Festival couplets at the miller's home to grind noodles here through relatives. The relative handed down from this relative loves to splash ink on Liu's body, pays attention to neat brushwork and writes in ink. In the past two years, he has always believed that the original two-body roller mill is green and pollution-free. He feels that the flour he grinds is very comfortable to eat, and there is no worry about additives and talcum powder. It is also home-grown wheat, and there is no toxic pesticide residue. Therefore, he is very glad that there is such a credible mill nearby. The processing technology of the mill owner is first-class, and the ground flour is dry and wet, which is very particular. For example, the moon surface is not obviously burnt and will not regain its moisture. The retention time is long, the gluten is flexible, and the impurities removed during wheat processing are clean. Therefore, in addition to gratitude, before the Chinese New Year, I also carefully splashed ink to write Spring Festival couplets and gave them to Wu Gong Mill for free to show friendship and praise. Besides, the Spring Festival couplets are also the frontispiece, written by the owner of the first room and the mill itself, which is very appropriate and warm. There is no doubt that the miller's family is also very proud and praises the teacher's virtue and behavior to other tourists.
The miller, Red Five, came out of the room to talk to me. He asked me if I was peeling corn while weighing it on the platform. Because I brought old corn for others to eat, I chose the peeling process. In fact, for the sake of health, it is better to peel coarse grains, but it feels rough and tastes less refreshing without peeling.
After reaching an agreement, first of all, the peeling machine is used for the first time. The chaff and chaff were thrown to the nearby export with the hum of the peeler, while the grains in flour and rice were put into a big iron trough. After the peeler stopped, flour and rice corn grits were processed. The grinding stopped soon, and the processed corn grits were put into small flour bags brought in advance, leaving rough skin. The processing fee was waived and no change was made. I think this kind of coarse grains, wheat bran and flour and rice that I don't take away should be used as free-range feed for pigeons and chickens, which can save me the trouble of taking away. Kill two birds with one stone, both sides are beneficial.
When I come out of the mill, I will reward my teacher with neat Liu-style pen and ink of couplets, praise my teacher's elegant pen and ink in front of Wu Gong, the miller, and admire his proper words. At the moment, I am also interested in this origin, and casually say a couplet at the gate of the mill, as follows:
Vertical Union: "Rice flour processing benefits the surrounding people, with exquisite grinding skills and dedication to the neighborhood."
The two doors are connected in a square shape: "grinding fine flour and fine rice, prospering family business and making money."
Horizontal batch: "Rice noodles are fragrant."