46 
LETTEES FEOM ALABAMA. 
a stranger ; homminy, then, be informed, is an in- 
dispensable dish at the table of a southern planter, 
morning, noon, and night. Indian corn is broken 
into pieces by pounding it in a mortar to a greater 
or less degree of fineness, as coarse or fine homminy 
is preferred, and this is boiled soft like rice, and 
eaten with meat. 
Here is another article of southern cookery with 
which I presume you are unacquainted, — woffles. 
You see they are square thin cakes, like pancakes, 
divided on both sides into square cells by intersect- 
ing ridges: but how shall I describe to you the mode 
in which they are cooked ? At the end of a pair of 
handles, moving on a pivot like a pair of scissors, 
or still more like the net forceps of an entomologist, 
are fixed two square plates of iron like shallow 
dishes, with cross furrows, corresponding to the 
ridges in the cakes ; this apparatus, called a woffle- 
iron, is made hot in the fire; then, being opened, a 
flat piece of dough is laid on one, and they are closed 
and pressed together ; the heat of the iron does the 
rest, and in a minute the woffle is cooked, and the 
iron is ready for another."^ They are very good, 
eaten with butter ; sometimes they are made of the 
meal of Indian corn (as so little wheat is grown 
here as to make wheat-flour be considered almost 
a luxury), but these are not nearly so nice, at least 
to an English palate. Neither is “ Indian bread,” 
which you will see at every table ; this, too, is 
made of corn meal ; it is coarse and gritty, does 
not hold together, having so little gluten ; yet 
this is eaten with avidity by the natives, rich and 
poor, and even preferred to the finest wheaten 
* I believe both the article and the name claim a Dutch 
parentage. 
