A Rolling Stone

This old-fashioned mill in Taichung’s Shalu District, with a stone roller weighing 600 kilograms, is used to crush stir-fried peanut kernels, an essential step in the traditional way of making peanut oil. While labor-­intensive and time-consuming, the method produces an aroma that modern grinders can’t match, enabling the unique peanut-oil fragrance that has been passed down for half a century to continue to fill the air.