Only the timeless endures – My Salzburg grain mill

Friday, 27.8.2021 Morning

I’m about to grind buckwheat and it stops, for the first time in 40 years!

I am stunned, actually find the reserve fuse, but it stops immediately. I suddenly realize how much I have been using it every day, how much I need it and how long it has been doing its job without fail.

I unscrew it, clean it lovingly and wonder whether this company even still exists……

In this short space of time, these 40 years together seem to pass in fast motion:

I received the grain mill from my mother when I was a young student in Innsbruck and would have been much happier with a different gift at the time. I didn’t really know why I should bake bread or use wholemeal flour. It lived in a cupboard because the kitchen was too small to give it a permanent place. It was brought out at all holy times only to be forgotten again.

Then my children grew up with her.

I’ll never forget the memories of my little daughter insisting on licking a freshly ground spoonful of flour every day and always pouring in the cereal while standing on an armchair.

This mill has experienced many ups and downs with me, many relocations, it has also been to faraway countries and often had to wait for months, packed in boxes, to be fed with grain again.

The older I got, the more I appreciated it and it always had a special place in the kitchen, always ready for use and used almost every day.

When my daughter starts her own household, I know exactly what gift I’m going to give her for her debut………..

Although I will now have to do without my grain mill for a while, the joy outweighs everything else and I want to express that here at the end:

YES, this company still exists and YES, even after 40 years a repair is carried out, although it would actually belong as an old-timer in the company museum as a showpiece.

A very touching telephone conversation with the management and sister of the company founder, who has unfortunately since passed away, revealed that this mill must have been one of the first that my mother bought in Hallein in the early 1980s.

With many thanks and best regards from southern Styria

Martina Emig