COOKING AND FOOD. 17 



CHAPTER IX. 



COOKING AND FOOD. 



Ovens are made oiitside the dwellings by digging holes in the ground, plastering 

 them with mud, and keeping a fire in them till quite hot, then withdrawing the 

 embers and lining the holes with wet gra,ss. The flesh, fish, or roots are put into 

 baskets, which are placed in the oven and covered with more wet grass, gravel, hot 

 stones, and earth, and kept covered till they are cooked. This is done in the evening ; 

 and, when cooking is in common — which is generally the case when many families 

 live together — each family comes next morning and removes its basket of food 

 for breakfast. 



Ovens on a greater scale, for cooking large animals, are formed and heated in 

 the same way, with the addition of stones at the bottom of the oven ; and emus, 

 wombats, turkeys, or forest kangaroos — sometimes unskinned and entire, and 

 sometimes cut into pieces — are placed in them, and covered with leafy branches, 

 wet grass, a sheet of bark, and embers on the top. 



Ordinary cooking, such as roasting opossums, small birds, and eels, is 

 generally done on the embers of the domestic fire. When opossums are killed 

 expressly for food, and not for the skin, the fur is plucked or singed oft" while 

 the animal is still warm ; the entrails are pulled out through an opening in the 

 skin, stripped of their contents, and eaten raw, and their place stufifed with herbs ; 

 the body is then toasted and turned slowly before the fire without breaking the 

 skin, and, if not immediately required for food, is set aside to cool. Opossum 

 thus prepared will keep and may be carried about much better than if uncooked. 

 In this way the natives make provision for travelling through countiy 

 where food is scarce. They are very fond of opossum when the animal is in 

 ordinary condition, but dislike it when fat. Kangaroo tails are cooked 

 unskinned, first singeing and scraping off" the hair, and then toasting them before 

 the fire till thoroughly done. By this method none of the juices of the meat 

 escape ; and what would otherwise be dry food is made savoury and nutritious. 

 As the sinews, however, which are very strong, would render the meat tough, 

 they are all pulled out previous to toasting, and are stretched and dried, and are 



