408 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1078. 



dressed several ways for their food. Sometimes boiling it whole till it swelled 

 and became tender, and so either eating it alone, or with their fish or venison 

 instead of bread. Sometimes bruising in mortars, and so boiling it. But com- 

 monly this way, viz. by parching it in ashes, or embers, so artificially stirring it, 

 as without burning, to be very tender, and turned almost inside outward, and 

 also white and floury. This they sift very well from the ashes, and beat it in 

 their wooden mortars, with a long stone for a pestle, into fine meal. This is a 

 constant food at home, and especially when they travel, being put up in a bag, 

 and so at all times ready for eating, either dry or mixed with water. They find 

 it very wholesome diet, and is that their soldiers carry with them in time of 

 war. The Indians have another sort of provision out of this corn, which they 

 call sweet-corn. When the corn in the ear is full, while it is yet green, it has 

 a very sweet taste. This they gather, boil, and then dry, and so put it up into 

 bags or baskets, for their use : boiling it again, either whole or grossly beaten, 

 when they eat it, either by itself, or among their fish or venison, or beavers, or 

 other flesh, accounting it a principal dish. These green and sweet ears they 

 sometimes roast before the fire or in the embers, and so eat the corn ; by which 

 means, they have sufficient supply of food, though their old store be done. 

 The English, of the full ripe corn ground make very good bread. But it is 

 not ordered as other corn ; for if it be mixed into stiff paste, it will not be so 

 good, as if made only a little stifFer than for puddings ; and so baked in a very 

 hot oven, standing therein all day or all night. Because on the first pouring 

 of it on the oven floor, it spreads abroad ; they pour a second layer or heap 

 upon every first, and thereby make so many loaves. It is also sometimes mixed 

 with half or a third part of rye or wheat meal, and so with leaven or yest made 

 into loaves of very good bread. 



Before they had mills, having first watered and husked the corn, and then 

 beaten it in wooden mortars, the coarser part sifted from the meal, and separated 

 from the loose hulls by the wind, they boiled to a thick batter: to which being 

 cold, they added so much of the fine meal, as would serve to stiffen it into paste, 

 whereof they made very good bread. But the best sort of food which the English 

 make of this corn, is that they call samp. Having first watered it about half an 

 hour, and then beaten it in a mortar, or else ground it in a hand or other mill, 

 into the size of rice, they next sift the flour, and winnow the hulls from it. 

 Then they boil it gently till it be tender, and so with milk or butter and sugar, 

 make it into a very pleasant and wholesome dish. This was the most usual diet 

 of the first planters in these parts, and is still in use amongt them, as well in 

 fevers, as in health : and was often prescribed by the learned Dr. Wilson to his 

 patients in London. And of the Indians that live much upon this corn, the 

 English have been informed by them, that the disease of the stone is very seldom 



