USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



ration. Yet that is what the Indian did, by a method 

 that consists essentially in roasting the nuts and then 

 washing out the poison. One wonders how many 

 prehistoric Calif ornians died martyrs in the perfect- 

 ing of the process. Mr. Chesnut, in his treatise al- 

 ready quoted on California Indian uses of plants, re- 

 cords in detail how the transformation into edibility 

 is accomplished : The Buckeyes are placed in the con- 

 ventional stone-lined baking pit which has been first 

 made hot with a fire ; they are then covered over with 

 earth and allowed to steam for several hours, until 

 the nuts have acquired the consistency of boiled 

 potatoes. They may then be either sliced, placed 

 in a basket and soaked in running water for from 

 two to five days (depending upon the thinness of 

 the slices), or mashed and rubbed up with w^ater 

 into a paste (the thin skin being incidentally sepa- 

 rated by this process) and after^vards soaked from 

 one to ten hours in a sand filter, the water as it 

 drains away conveying with it the noxious principle. 

 It was customary to eat the resultant mass cold 

 and without salt. I have encountered no record of 

 the similar use of the eastern Buckeye. The Cali- 

 f ornians' treatment of the Pacific Coast species is 

 an interesting instance, I think, of what may be 

 done with the most unpromising material. 



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