Indore’s poha, sev and the besan behind them
Why the city’s breakfast depends on a good bag of chana flour.
Dressing the stones: the job nobody sees
Every few months the granite stones are lifted and re-cut by hand. Here is why.
A stone chakki only grinds well as long as its stones are sharp. The faces of the two granite discs carry a pattern of shallow grooves that run from the centre to the edge. They cut the grain and carry the flour outward. With use, the grooves wear smooth, and the flour comes out coarse and warm.
So every three to four months we stop one chakki for a day and dress the stones. The top stone weighs about 80 kg and is lifted off with a chain hoist. Ramesh, who has dressed our stones since 1998, marks the old grooves with chalk and cuts them again with a steel chisel and a small hammer, one stroke at a time. It takes him most of a day per stone.
After dressing, the stones are run with a little rice or broken wheat first, which goes to cattle feed, to clean away the stone dust. Only then does the day’s wheat go in.
This is one reason we run two chakkis. While one is being dressed, the other keeps grinding, so orders do not wait. If you visit on a dressing day, you will hear the chisel from the gate.
