Chapter 157 - 155: Pounding Rice
Pounding rice is a very ancient and practical agricultural production activity, with its history tracing back to the early stages of human civilization.
It originated during the dawn of human civilization with the earliest agricultural practices like slash-and-burn cultivation. In Flame Country, it has been passed down for thousands of years, until modern mechanical processing gradually replaced this age-old agricultural activity.
However, even so, in the vast rural areas of Flame Country, this ancient skill can still be observed.
The word "pound," pronounced the same as "chong," means putting something into a stone mortar or pestle and using a rod to mash it.
This is an ancient pictograph, with the bottom being the character for mortar, and the upper part in ancient script and small seal script depicts two people holding a pestle, vividly and graphically expressing the meaning of the word.
Once you understand the meaning of this word, recreating this ancient agricultural production activity becomes simple.
Find a sufficiently sturdy container, put rice grains inside, and use a heavy object to continuously pound until all the rice husks are broken, revealing the grain, which completes the rice pounding process.
This container in the vast rural areas is usually made of stone mortar, with even more primitive and ancient ones being burned out of tree stumps.
As for the tools used for pounding, wood, stone, or metal can all be used as long as they are heavy enough to crush the rice husks.
Chen Xin adopted a method of using metal materials to make a large bowl and a metal rod, then putting rice grains into the bowl and pounding them with the metal rod.