Dexter's Grist Mill, Sandwich, Massachusetts, USA

This is Dexter's Grist Mill on Cape Cod in Sandwich, Massachusetts. The original mill on this site began milling corn in the mid-1600's. Early settlers would bring their dried corn here and the miller would grind it into corn meal.

There have been grain mills for perhaps two thousand years or so on this earth. Think about that - someone decided that if you take dried up corn, hard as small stones, and crush it fine enough, you could eat it and survive. How hungry must people have been to consider and then arrive at that conclusion.

Corn is the number one field crop in the U.S. It is also grown on every continent except Antarctica and eaten throughout the world in various forms.  The dried corn kernels go into the hopper.

Then this mechanism feeds the kernels into the grinding stones which are powered by the stream water turning the water wheel.

And out comes 100% pure cornmeal - no additives.  You can make bread, cookies,  pancakes,  muffins, scones, polenta, tamales, tortillas, and countless other foods and products.

It is truly "a-maize-ing" the things we've figured out to do in order to survive on this planet.