INDIAN CORN. 



285 



if the death of the potato has heen the 

 means of awakening us to such an immea- 

 surable superior resource, we shall, in ad- 

 dition to our sorrowful Irish reasons, have 

 many joyful English, European, American 

 and universal reasons to thank Heaven that 

 the potato has been so kind as to die. 



l< In the mean while, though extensive- 

 ly employed in the British Islands within 

 these three years, Indian corn cannot be 

 said to have come into use ; for only the 

 bungled counterfeit of it is hitherto in use; 

 which may be well called not the use of 

 Indian corn, but the abuse of it. Govern- 

 ment did, indeed, on the first failure of 

 the potato, send abroad printed papers 

 about the cooking of this article, for behoof 

 of the poor ; and once, I recollect, there cir- 

 culated in all the newspapers, for some 

 weeks, promulgated by some ' Peace Mis- 

 sionary,' a s«t of flowery prophetic recipes 

 for making Indian meal into most palatable 

 puddings, with ' quarts of cream,' six eggs 

 well whipt, &c. — ingredients out of which 

 the British female intellect used to make 

 tolerable puddings even without Indian 

 meal, and by recipes of its own ! Those 

 recipes were circulated among the popula- 

 tion — of little or no value, I now find, even 

 as recipes ; but in the mean while there 

 was this fatal omission made, that no Indian 

 meal on fair terms, and no good Indian 

 meal on any terms at all, was, or is yet 

 attainable among us to try by any recipe. 

 In that unfortunate condition, I say, matters 

 still remain. 



" The actual value of Indian meal by 

 retail, with a free demand, is about one 

 penny per pound ; or with a poor demand, 

 as was inevitable at first, but need not 

 have been necessary long, let us say three 

 half-pence a pound, The London shops, 

 two years ago, on extensive inquiry, were 

 not found to yield any of it under three pence 

 a pound — the price of wheaten flour ; some- 

 where between twice and thrice times the 

 cost of Indian meal. But further, and 

 worse, all the Indian meal so purchaseable 

 was found to have a hitler fusty taste in it; 

 which, after multiplied experiments, was 

 not eradicable by any cookery, though con- 

 tinued boiling in clear water did abate it 

 considerably. Our approved method of 

 cookery came at last to be, that of making 



the meal with either hot or cold water into 

 a thick batter, and boiling it, tied up in a 

 linen cloth or set in a crockery shape, for 

 four or sometimes seven hours, which pro- 

 duced a thick handsome looking pudding; 

 such as one might have hoped would prove 

 very eligible for eating instead of potatoes 

 along with meat. Hope, however, did not 

 correspond with experience. This hand- 

 some looking pudding combined readily 

 with any kind of sauce, sweet, spicy, olea- 

 ginous; but except the old tang of bitter- 

 ness, it had little taste of its own ; and 

 along with meat ■ it could,' like Charles of 

 Sweden's bread, ' be eaten,' but was never 

 good, at best was barely endurable. 



"Yet the Americans praised their Indian 

 meal ; celebrated its sapid excellencies, and 

 m magazine novels, as we could see, ' ly- 

 rically recognised' them. Where could the 

 error lie ? This meal of a beautiful golden 

 color, equably ground into fine hard powder, 

 and without speck or admixture of any 

 kind, seemed to the sight, the feel and the 

 smell, faultless ; only to the taste was there 

 ineradicable final bitterness, which in bad 

 samples even made the throat smart ; and, 

 as the meal seemed otherwise tasteless, 

 acquired for it, from unpatriotic mockers 

 among us, the name of ' soot and sawdust 

 meal.' American friends at last informed 

 us that the meal was fusty, spoiled; that 

 Indian meal especially in warm weather, 

 did not keep sweet above a few weeks ; 

 that we ought to procure Indian corn and 

 have it ground ourselves. Indian corn was 

 accordingly procured, with difficulty, from 

 the eastern city regions, and with no better 

 result, nay, with a worse. How old the 

 corn might be, we, of course, knew only by 

 testimony not above suspicion ; perhaps it 

 was corn of the second year in bond ; but 

 at all events the meal of it was too bitter ; 

 and the new evil was added of an intolera- 

 ble mixture of sand ; which, on reflection, 

 was discovered to proceed from the English 

 mill-stones, too soft for this new substance, 

 could not grind it, could only grind them- 

 selves and it, and so produce a mixture of 

 meal and sand. Soot-and-sawdust meal, 

 with the addition of brayed flint ; there was 

 plainly no standing this. I had to take 

 farewell of this Indian meal experiment ; 

 my poor patriotic attempt to learn eating 



