"Poha" or "Flatened Rice" is one of the most loved food item in many parts of India especially, eastern Indua and Southern parts of India. People loves to it raw, or with curd or many other recipes can be made out of it. But many would never understand how these Poha were made.
Poha is basically kind of Rice which is made out of the paddy crops. The process of making it is far more interesting then enjoying it eating. It requires a Hot Furnace to get them roasted before segregating the husks from it.
That's true, as people were more concern of finding them easily in the markets or big shopping mall. But actually it passes through lot of heating and churning process before it could be made available for eating.
Once paddys were seperated in the fields, it were bought and steamed at home. This is the initial process of making Poha tye passys were soaked into water over night and then slowly get heated at home. The stoves were generally made up of mud.
 |  |
|---|---|
| Dry Crops | Ready Paddys |
Then after steaming it at home, it was taken to the market which has large coal furnace to roast them properly.
I am more fascinated by the look of thevfurnace, which has two big holes and made up of mad. There was a small space on the side to blow the air. The two holes were used only roast steamed paddy, with sand
You read it correctly, even in today's generation, these kind of set up still exists which used natural Sand to roast the paddy, to make it crispy.
One after the another, the helper at the mill take the paddys and smartly threw it inside the furnace. He seems to be have experienced hand as hardly there is waste outside.
He made sure, the furnace get properly heated. He has his eyes on the fire part and made sure to ignite them time to time.
In the mean time, I looked inside the furnace, and it looked to be kind of cylindrical shape iron that revolves on clockwise direction and the helper roast the paddy inside it with the help of Sand.
Once the deep frying is done,the roasted paddys were put into a churning machine, which runs inside the mill. The first glimpse of machine in the entire Poha making. The helper there too made sure to keep a check on the churning process.
From time to time, he made sure that, paddys does get powder, and properly Poha made. This too requires to be very watchful process. As a minute mistake may spoil the whole hard churning process.
Now, the final process is to remove the husk, and clean the Poha. All dust particles and powdered form were removed and what left is simple white dry Poha which can be enjoyed in various form.
Even in so technologically advance ages, funding some tradional approach , always calls to appreciate. The effort that these were made and running since so many years is quite remarkable.