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A Samp Mortar is a tool for grinding dried corn (maize.)

It was made from the stump of a tree (ideally, white oak or pine) burned hollow, scraped clean and polished. You aimed to make your hollow an inverted conical shape -- the fire could be guided by holes drilled in the stump.

Ideally, the tree stump would have a healthy sapling tree nearby, or a tree branch.

If so, you'd tie a block of white oak to the sapling or branch. Otherwise, you'd make a sweep coming off a post and hang the pounder off that.

You worked the device like a piston, with whatever you'd hung the pounder on acting as a spring to lift it back up for you to ease the work. Still, it could take half a day to grind up half a bushel of corn into cornmeal.

They were used in Canada and in America. Some small towns would make a public one for everyone in the public square.

See Also:

Cornmeal, Samp

Other entries for:

Mortar and Pestle
Metate y Metlapil, Molcajete y Tejolete, Samp Mortar, Suribachi, Thai Mortar and Pestle, Usu

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Food Mills, Food Processor, Nut Mill, Passoire, Pepper Mills, Potato Ricer, Quern, Ricer, Spice Grinder

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