310 Singing Valleys 



gluten feeds for cattle and the even more valuable corn oil. 

 What is left, after the indigestible hulls have been bolted out 

 of the meal, they do up in packages with pretty pictures on 

 them and sell to the public for Indian meal. On their books 

 this is just a by-product of the lucrative gluten and corn-oil 

 business. 



But when you eat suppawn or bread made from water- 

 ground meal, you are getting all that the corn has to give in 

 the way of food and mineral and fat values. The only thing 

 that has been taken from the natural grain is the chaff of 

 the hulls. 



It is true that water-ground meal does not keep as well as 

 meal from which the germ has been removed. This is one 

 reason why many of the grocers do not stock it. In pioneer 

 days the housewife sent a sack of corn to the mill and used it 

 up before sending another seventy pounds or so to be ground. 

 Even so, when the sack was getting low, careful housekeepers 

 usually poured the meal into big sheet-iron pans, and set these 

 in the warm oven. Presently, any corn worms which had devel- 

 oped, or were on the point of hatching, would wriggle to the 

 surface of the pan and over the sides to quick death on the 

 bottom of the oven. The meal would be turned over and over 

 with a long-handled spoon until it showed no more inclination 

 to squirm. Then it was made into mush or yellow bread. And 

 next day one of the boys rode another sack of corn over to 

 the mill. 



Good suppawn needs long, slow cooking. Preferably in an 

 iron pot in which there is no chance of scorching. If you are 

 condemned to a modern kitchen of the operating-theater 

 model, all porcelain tiles and chromium, and fitted with Bun- 

 sen burners and electric gadgets, at least use a heavy aluminum 

 double boiler to cook mush. And forget the gas bill. 



The hasty pudding of old-fashioned New England was noth- 

 ing more than suppawn, sweetened with molasses and spices, 

 and occasionally with Spanish raisins. Milk improved it; cream 

 glorified it. The young gentlemen of Harvard College were 



