Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Aboriginal Cookery
By William Wood (fl. 16291635)H
In summer, when their corn is spent, isquoterquashes is their best bread, a fruit much like a pumpkin. To say, and to speak paradoxically, they be great eaters, and little meat men. When they visit our English, being invited to eat, they are very moderate, whether it be to show their manners or for shamefac’dness, I know not, but at home they eat till their bellies stand south, ready to split with fulness; it being their fashion to eat all at sometimes, and sometimes nothing at all in two or three days, wise providence being a stranger to their wilder ways. They be right infidels; neither caring for the morrow, nor providing for their own families; but as all are fellows at foot-ball, so they all meet friends at the kettle, saving their wives, that dance a spaniel-like attendance at their backs for their bony fragments. If their imperious occasions cause them to travel, the best of their victuals for their journey is Nocake (as they call it), which is nothing but Indian corn parched in the hot ashes; the ashes being sifted from it, it is afterwards beat to powder, and put into a long leathern bag, trussed at their backs like a knapsack, out of which they take thrice three spoonfuls a day, dividing it into three meals. If it be in winter, and snow be on the ground, they can eat when they please, stopping snow after their dusty victuals, which otherwise would feed them little better than a Tyburn halter. In summer they must stay till they meet with a spring or a brook, where they may have water to prevent the imminent danger of choking. With this strange viaticum they will travel four or five days together, with loads fitter for elephants than for men. But though they can fare so hardly abroad, their chaps must walk night and day, as long as they have it. They keep no set meals; their store being spent, they champ on the bit, till they meet with fresh supplies, either from their own endeavors, or their wives’ industry, who trudge to the clam-banks when all other means fail. Though they be sometimes scanted, yet are they as free as emperors, both to their countrymen and English, be he stranger or near acquaintance; counting it a great discourtesy not to eat of their high-conceited delicacies, and sup of their un-oatmeal’d broth, made thick with fishes, fowls, and beasts, boiled altogether; some remaining raw, the rest converted, by overmuch seething, to a loathed mash, not half so good as Irish bonny-clapper.