Green Corn and Its Uses
The Ripening Ears
The first corn was ready to be eaten green early in the harvest moon, when the blossoms of the prairie golden rod are all in full, bright yellow; or about the end of the first week in August. We ate much green corn, boiling the fresh ears in a pot as white people do; but every Hidatsa family also put up dried green corn for winter. This took the place with us of the canned green corn we now buy at the trader’s store.
I knew when the corn ears were ripe enough for boiling from these signs: The blossoms on the top of the stalk were turned brown, the silk on the end of the ear was dry, and the husks on the ear were of a dark green color.
I do not think the younger Indians on this reservation are as good agriculturists as we older members of my tribe were when we were young. I sometimes say to my son Goodbird: “You young folks, when you want green corn, open the husk to see if the grain is ripe enough, and thus expose it; but I just go out into the field and pluck the ear. When you open an ear and find it too green to pluck, you let it stand on the stalk; and birds then come and eat the exposed kernels, or little brown ants climb up the stalk and eat the ear and spoil it. I do not think you are very good gardeners in these days. In old times, when we went out to gather green ears, we did not have to open their faces to see if the grain was ripe enough to be plucked!”
Second Planting for Green Corn
Our green corn season lasted about ten days, when the grain, though not yet ripe, became too hard for boiling green.
To provide green corn to be eaten late in the season, we used to make a second planting of corn when June berries were ripe; and for this purpose we left a space, not very large, vacant in the field. In my father’s family this second planting was of about twenty-eight hills of corn. It came ready to eat when the other corn was getting hard; but it often got caught by the frost. Nearly every garden owner made such a second planting; it was, indeed, a usual practice in the tribe.
Cooking Fresh Green Corn
Our usual way of cooking fresh, green corn, was to boil it in a kettle on the cob.
Fresh, green corn, shelled from the cob, was often put in a corn mortar and pounded; and then boiled without fats or meat. Prepared thus, it had a sweet taste and smell; much like that of the canned corn we buy of the traders.
Shelled green corn, in the whole grain, was also boiled fresh, mixed with beans and fats.
Roasting Ears
Green ears were sometimes roasted, usually by an individual member of the family who wanted a little change of diet. The women of my father’s family never prepared a full meal of roasted ears that I remember; if any one wanted roasted, fresh, green corn, he prepared it himself.
When I wanted to roast green corn I made a fire of cottonwood and prepared a bed of coals. I laid the fresh ear on the coals with the husk removed. As the corn roasted, I rolled the ear gently to and fro over the coals. When properly cooked I removed the ear and laid on another.
As the ear roasted, the green kernels would pop sometimes with quite a sharp sound. If this popping noise was very loud, we would laugh and say to the one roasting the ear, “Ah, we see you have stolen that ear from some other family’s garden!”
Green corn was regularly taken out of the garden to roast until frost came, when it lost its fragrance and fresh taste. To restore its freshness, we would take the green corn silk of the same plucked ear and rub the silk well into the kernels of the ear as they stood in the cob. This measurably restored the fresh taste and smell.
We did not do this if the ear was to be boiled, only if we intended to roast it.
For green corn, boiled and eaten fresh, we used all varieties except the gummy; for when green they tasted alike. But for roasting ears we thought the two yellow varieties, hard and soft, were the best.
Mätu´a-la´kapa
A common dish made from green corn was mätu´a-la´kapa, from mätu´a, green corn; and la´kapa, mush, or something mushy; thus, wheat flour mixed with water to a thick paste we call la´kapa, even if unboiled.
Ripening green corn, with the grain still soft, was shelled off the cob with the tip of the thumb or with the thumb nail. The shelled corn was pounded in a mortar and boiled with beans; it was flavored with spring salt.
Corn Bread
We also made a kind of corn bread from green corn.
Green ears were plucked and the corn shelled off with the thumb nail, so as not to break open the kernels. Boiled green corn could be shelled with a mussel shell because boiling toughened the kernels; but unboiled green corn was shelled with the thumb nail.
Two or three women often worked at shelling the corn as it was rather tedious work.
When enough of the corn had been shelled, it was put in a corn mortar and pounded.
Some of the ears were naturally longer than others: a number of these had been selected and their husks removed. Some of these husks were now laid down side by side, but overlapping like shingles, until a sheet was made about ten inches wide.
Another row of husks was laid over the first, transversely to them; and so until four or five layers of the green husks were made, each lying transversely to the layer of husks beneath.
The shelled corn, pounded almost to a pulp, was poured out on this husk sheet, and patted down with the hand to a loaf about seven or eight inches square, and an inch or two thick. However, this varied; a girl would make a much smaller loaf than would a woman preparing a mess for her family.
The ends of the uppermost layer of husks were now folded over the top of the loaf, leaf by leaf; then the next layer of husks beneath; and so until the ends of all the husks were folded over the top of the loaf, quite hiding it.
Two or three husk leaves had been split into strips half an inch to three quarters of an inch in width. These strips were tied together to make bands to bind the loaf. Three bands passed around the loaf each way, or six bands in all.
No grease nor fat, nor any seasoning, had been added to the loaf; the pounded green corn pulp was all that entered into it.
The loaf made, now came the baking. The ashes in the fire place in an earth lodge lay quite deep. A cavity was dug into these ashes about as deep as my hand is long. Into the bottom of this cavity live coals and hot ashes were raked, and upon these the loaf was laid; a few ashes were raked over the top, and upon these ashes live coals were heaped. The loaf baked in about two hours.
We called this loaf naktsi´, or buried-in-ashes-and-baked. Soft white and soft yellow corn were good varieties from which to make this buried-and-baked corn, as we called it.
Drying Green Corn for Winter
Every Hidatsa family put up a store of dried green corn for winter. This is the way in which I prepared my family’s store.
In the proper season I went out into our garden and broke off the ears that I found, that were of a dark green outside. Sometimes I even broke open the husks to see if the ear was just right; but this was seldom, as I could tell very well by the color and other signs I have described. I went all over the garden, plucking the dark green ears, and putting them in a pile in some convenient spot on the cultivated ground. If I was close enough I tossed each ear upon the pile as I plucked it; but as I drew further away, I gathered the ears into my basket and bore them to the pile.
I left off plucking when the pile contained five basketfuls if I was working alone. If two of us were working we plucked about ten basketfuls.
Green corn for drying was always plucked in the evening, just before sunset; and the newly plucked ears were let lie in the pile all night, in the open air. The corn was not brought home on the evening of the plucking, because if kept in the earth lodge over night it would not taste so fresh and sweet, we thought.
The next morning before breakfast, I went out to the field and fetched the corn to our lodge in the village. As I brought the baskets into the lodge, I emptied them in a pile at the place marked B in [figure 11], near the fire.
Sitting at A, I now began husking, breaking off the husks from each ear in three strokes, thus: With my hand I drew back half the husk; second, I drew back the other half; third, I broke the husk from the cob. The husks I put in a pile, E, to one side. No husking pegs were used, such as you describe to me; I could husk quite rapidly with my bare hands.
As the ears were stripped, they were laid in a pile upon some of the discarded husks, spread for that purpose. The freshly husked ears made a pretty sight; some of them were big, fine ones, and all had plump, shiny kernels. A twelve-row ear we thought a big one; a few very big ears had fourteen rows of kernels; smaller ears had not more than eight rows.
Two kettles, meanwhile, had been prepared. One marked D in [figure 11], was set upon coals in the fireplace; the other, C, was suspended over the fire by a chain attached to the drying pole. The kettles held water, which was now brought to a boil.
When enough corn was husked to fill one of these kettles, I gathered up the ears and dropped them in the boiling water. I watched the corn carefully, and when it was about half cooked, I lifted the ears out with a mountain sheep horn spoon and laid them on a pile of husks.
Figure 11
When all the corn was cooked, I loaded the ears in my basket and bore them out upon the drying stage, where I laid them in rows, side by side, upon the stage floor. There I left them to dry over night.
The work of bringing in the five basketfuls of corn from the field and boiling the ears took all day, until evening.
In the morning the corn was brought into the lodge again. A skin tent cover had been spread on the floor and the half boiled ears were laid on it, in a pile. I now sat on the floor, as an Indian woman sits, with ankles to the right, and with the edge of the tent cover drawn over my knees, I took an ear of the half boiled corn in my left hand, holding it with the greater end toward me. I had a small, pointed stick; and this I ran, point forward, down between two rows of kernels, thus loosening the grains. The right hand row of the two rows of loosened kernels I now shelled off with my right thumb. I then shelled off all the other rows of kernels, one row at a time, working toward the left, and rolling the cob over toward the right as I did so.
There was another way of shelling half boiled corn. As before, I would run a sharpened stick down two rows of kernels, loosening the grains; and I would then shell them off with smart, quick strokes of a mussel shell held in my right hand. We still shell half boiled corn in this way, using large spoons instead of shells. There were very few metal spoons in use in my tribe when I was a girl; mussel shells were used instead for most purposes.
If while I was shelling the corn, a girl or woman came into the lodge to visit, she would sit down and lend a hand while we chatted; thus the shelling was soon done.
The shelling finished, I took an old tent cover and spread it on the floor of the drying stage outside. On this cover I spread the shelled corn to dry, carrying it up on the stage in my basket.
At night I covered the drying corn with old tent skins to protect it from dampness.
The corn dried in about four days.
When the corn was well dried, I winnowed it. This I sometimes did on the floor of the drying stage, sometimes on the ground.
Having chosen a day when a slight wind was blowing, I filled a wooden bowl from the dried corn that lay heaped on the tent cover; and holding the bowl aloft I let the grain pour slowly from it, that any chaff might be winnowed out.
The corn was now ready to be put in sacks for winter.
Corn thus prepared we called maada´ckihĕ, from ada´ckihĕ, treated-by-fire-but-not-cooked, a word also used to designate food that has been prepared by smoking.
All varieties of corn could be prepared in this way.[11]
The Arikaras on this reservation have a different way of preparing and drying green corn. They make a big heap of dried willows, and upon these lay the ears, green and freshly plucked, in the husk. When all is ready, they set fire to the willows, thus roasting the corn; and they often roast a great pile of corn at one time, in this way. The roasted ears are husked and shelled, and the grain dried, for storing. Corn that has been roasted in the Arikara way, dries much more quickly than that prepared by boiling.
Of late years some Mandan and Hidatsa families occasionally roast their corn in imitation of the Arikara way; but I never saw this done in my youth.
I do not like to eat food made of this dried, roasted corn; it is dirty!