MODE OF COOKING. 
291 
the whole pile as rapidly covered up as possible to 
keep in the steam. The gathering vegetable food, 
and in fact the cooking and preparing of food gene- 
rally, devolves upon the women, except in the case 
of an emu or a kangaroo, or some of the larger 
and more valuable animals, when the men take this 
duty upon themselves. 
In cooking vegetables, a single oven will suffice 
for three or four families, each woman receiving the 
same bundles of food when cooked, which she had 
put in. The smaller kinds of fish and shell-fish, 
birds and animals, frogs, turtle, eggs, reptiles, gums, 
&c., are usually broiled upon the embers. Roots, 
bark of trees, &c., are cooked in the hot ashes. 
Fungi are either eaten raw or are roasted. The 
white ant is always eaten raw. The larvse of insects 
and the leaves of plants are either eaten raw or in a 
cooked state. The larger animals, as the kangaroo, 
emu, native dog, &c and the larger fishes, are usually 
roasted in the oven. 
In preparing the food for the cooking process a 
variety of forms are observed. In most animals, 
as the opossum, wallabie, dog, kangaroo, &c. the 
the bones of the legs are invariably broken, and 
the fur is singed off ; a small aperture is made 
in the belly, the entrails withdrawn, and the 
hole closed with a wooden skewer, to keep in 
the gravy whilst roasting. The entrails of all 
animals, birds, and fishes, are made use of, and are 
frequently eaten whilst the animal itself is being 
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