The meaning of stone mortar

Stone mortar refers to a production tool made of various stones, which is used to crush, pound and grind medicinal materials and food. It was called cymbals in ancient times.

Elaborate in detail

A stone mortar is a tool for milling rice. It is square, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Put it in the soil, only the mortar mouth is exposed to the ground. With the turbulence of the raft, the rice was shelled and peeled in the stone mortar, revealing dark red and white rice grains. Small stone mortar can be used for crushing, ramming, grinding and grinding medicinal materials.

Before the electric production, human food was mainly processed into food with this production tool. It can be said that stone mortar is a necessity of ancient human life, and stone mortar and well are symbols of human settlement.

After mankind entered the era of electrification, stone mortar was gradually eliminated, and it is still only used in some remote areas without electrification equipment. In many villages in China, the eliminated stone mortar is still well preserved and has become the object of many people's remembrance.

Extended knowledge

Good quality and well-preserved stone mortar is also very popular in the collection market. People think that each kind of mortar is unique, and many mortars have gradually become unique works of art after long-term use, with higher collection value.

Different types and sizes of stone mortar have different functions. Large stone mortar is mainly used for processing grain, shelling and mashing rice. Small stone mortar is mainly used for mashing garlic and pepper for rice, and it is used to grind medicinal materials in pharmacies. However, most Chinese medicine shops now use iron nests and pestles to grind medicinal materials, which cannot be called stone mortar.

Lift the stone pestle with a long wooden handle, smash the millet in the nest, smash the shell of the millet and turn it into rice. This is a classic picture of farming life handed down from generation to generation.

At present, some rural areas in the south are still using the ancient method of mashing rice with stone mortar to make rice cakes and other foods. But for the convenience of operation, they changed the stone pestle into a wooden pestle.

Stone mortar is quite old, and it is an earlier food processing tool than grinding and grinding. Zhuangzi said in "Happy Travel" that "those who are suitable for a hundred miles stay in the grain", which means that people who go hundreds of miles away should spend the whole night in the grain and prepare dry food on the way. It can be seen that in the Spring and Autumn Period, stone mortar was quite popular.