LITTLE REGARDED WILD FRUITS 



secretiveness that my eyes failed to detect what they 

 were. Later as the woman rose to go, she raked 

 awav the ashes wdth a stick and drew out several 

 blackened Yucca pods, which had been roasting while 

 we talked. I can testify to the entire palatal)ility of 

 this cooked fruit (the rind being first removed), 

 finding it pleasantly suggestive of sweet potato. 

 Those fruits that morning were still green when 

 plucked. Dr. H. H. Rusby informs me that the sliced 

 pulp of the nearly ripe j^ods makes a pie almost in- 

 distinguishable from apple pie. The ripe fruit may 

 be eaten raw, but the more usual custom among the 

 Pueblo Lidians, who would travel long miles in the 

 pre-education days to gather the succulent, yellow 

 pods and bring them home by the burro-load, was to 

 cook them. Sometimes they were simply boiled, and 

 on cooking the skin was removed, since it then sep- 

 arates easily from the pulp; but there w^as a more 

 complicated process, resulting in a sort of conserve, 

 that was considered better. This w^as to bake the 

 fruit, peel it and remove the fibre, and then boil down 

 the pulp to a firm paste. This was rolled out in 

 sheets of about an inch in thickness, and carefully 

 dried. Afterwards these were cut up into con- 

 venient sizes and laid away to be consumed either 



105 



