Yellow Bread 311 



devotees of hasty pudding. Shortly after the Revolution, and 

 when New England was losing a large proportion of her man- 

 power to the Ohio and Illinois country, Harvard undergradu- 

 ates started a new club called "Hasty Pudding." At first, the 

 activities centered around dinner at a certain Cambridge inn 

 on "hasty pudding night." Later the club went in for the 

 dramatic arts; truly, an evidence of our corn-fed culture. 



Nowadays, I believe, the dining-room stewards at Harvard 

 feature an Indian pudding. This is how they make it: Over 

 three tablespoons of corn meal they pour three and one-half 

 cups of scalding milk. This is stirred well and sweetened with 

 one-third of a cup of molasses, and cooked until it thickens. 

 Constant stirring is necessary to keep it smooth and to pre- 

 vent burning. "Remove from the fire," the directions con- 

 tinue; "add one cup of cold milk, half a cup of sugar, two 

 tablespoons of butter and one-half teaspoon each of salt, 

 powdered cinnamon and powdered ginger. Pour the pudding 

 into a buttered, earthen-ware dish, and bake in a moderate 

 oven at least three hours." 



I have been told that this is the Harvard undergraduates' 

 favorite dessert. And, lest our oldest seat of learning be accused 

 of an unseemly democracy, there is still a nice social distinction 

 between those who pour milk over their Indian pudding and 

 those who can go to cream. There's a rumor that the young 

 nabobs on the Gold Coast top theirs off with vanilla ice 

 cream! 



Our first American poet sang the praises of early days in 

 New England when 



. . . the dainty Indian maize 



Was et with clam-shelles out of wooden trays. 



Doubtless he was referring to suppawn. But in the days when 

 corn was pounded in stone mortars and bolted through a 

 basket sieve, the corn porridge was a coarse and gritty sub- 

 stance. The Indian method of preparing maize was to steep 

 it in hot water for half a day, then to pound the moist grain 



