Note 16 — Chapter IV · CORN (continued 2)
Reading edition
In 1910 Buffalobird-woman gave an interesting and detailed account of the making of a clay pot. A newly made pot, she explained, was rubbed over with boiled pounded-corn meal; and she added this rather humorous variation of the recipe above:
“This mush, or boiled, pounded-corn meal was made thus:
“A clay pot was three-quarters filled with water and put on the fire to boil. Meanwhile, twelve double handfuls of corn were pounded in the corn mortar; usually we pounded three or four double handfuls at a time. This began after breakfast; it was work and made us women sweat. The corn was hard, ripe corn, yellow or white.
“These twelve double handfuls were thrown into the pot of now boiling water, and boiled for half an hour. As there was no grease in the pot, we had to stir the contents with a smooth stick to keep from sticking.
“As the corn boiled a scummy substance would rise to the top. To this the woman cooking would touch the point of her horn spoon, and carry it to her tongue and lick it off. When she could taste that it was sticky enough, she knew that it was time to add beans. It took, as I have said, about half an hour for the corn to boil to this point.
“She now added some spring salt. This is alkaline salt which we gathered about the mouth of springs. It was white. The woman put some of this salt in a cup and made a strong liquor—in old times instead of a cup she used a horn spoon. She now added the salt liquor to the mess. It took about enough of this white salt to make a heaping tablespoonful to one pot of this corn mess. As the salt liquor was poured into the pot, the woman held her hand over the mouth of the cup, so that if any pieces of grass or other refuse were in it, they would be strained out by her fingers.
“The corn when it is pounded does not pound evenly; and so when it was put into the pot, the finer part of the meal was cooked first. This rose to the top, and in old times was skimmed off. The coarser parts of the meal took longer to cook; but the skimmed-off part, when the other was done, was poured back into the pot again.
“When the pounded corn meal had now all cooked and the salt had been added, the beans were put in—red, spotted, black, or shield-figured, we did not have white beans in very old times; they were brought in by white men. The pot was now let boil until the beans were done. Beans were always added to the pot.
“A pot of corn meal and beans was [almost] always on the fire in the lodge. The boys of the lodge liked to come around when the corn was cooking and dip horn spoons into the thick, rising liquor, and lick it off as I have described the woman doing as she cooked.
“It was this sticky, rising liquor taken off the boiling corn to keep and return to it, that was used to rub over a newly made pot. When this was done, the pot was ready to boil corn in.
“After using a pot, it was usually rubbed over with the residue of the boiled corn meal, or mush, because this made the pot look better and last longer.
“The skimmed-off liquor from a pot of boiling corn meal was also fed to a baby whose mother had died, and whose family could not hire a woman to nurse it.”