Old people in rural areas say that elm bark can be ground and eaten, but can bark be ground and eaten?

I clearly remember that at that time, whenever I was free, my parents would go to the mountains to look for old trees. After searching, they were happy. They tore off the bark, went home to dry it, ground it into flour with their own stone mill, and mixed it with some corn flour for lunch. People in Shanxi like to eat pasta, but there are few grains in wheat and Mao Mao, most of which are corn. However, bark cloth has ductility and good bonding effect. Corn flour mixed with a little bark powder can be made into meals such as rubbing and shaking, which can improve the diet and is far stronger than eating steamed bread. You can also increase the weight of the noodles, killing two birds with one stone.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was facing food difficulties, villagers used dried elm bark to grind it into flour, mixed it with sweet potato powder, corn stalk powder, bran and soybean skin, and steamed it for taking. But this is used as a viscous additive, because these kinds of coarse wheat flour can not be kneaded together, and only by adding elm bark can it agglomerate. Elm bark is the best root, the epidermis is thicker, the stem is second, and the small bark is ultra-thin. But at that time, more peeling came from younger saplings, and old bark was basically rare and difficult to find at that time.

One is that there are not so many elm bark, and the other is that pure elm bark without other miscellaneous grains can not be taken independently. Only a small amount is added, and the stool cannot be solved after taking it. In the early days of liberation, it was difficult to provide food crops for a period of time. In order to better cope with the shortage of food crops, the villagers peeled off the tough skin of elm, dried it and ground it into powder, added it into wheat flour such as corn flour and sorghum flour, and then made fresh noodles, chaotic skins, steamed buns and other meals. Elm has much less tannin than pine bark, so it tastes sweet instead of bitter.

Adding the ground powder of elm bark to other wheat flour will make the color of food turn red and improve the gastrointestinal tract. In difficult times, people basically want to collect everything that can be used to replace food, such as barnyard grass in the field, sweet potato left by leaders, Chinese cabbage seeds and ginkgo trees. I have eaten them all. That's what I call despair. I can't eat enough just by helping the canteen. It can be said that the pots and pans of 32 meters, 42 meters and 62 meters in the dining hall at that time are enough today, and even the leftovers are mainly because there is no oil in the stomach, and they still want to eat after eating.