NEAR THE KITCHEN.
From the stable they wandered to the kitchen, where three or four native women were at work preparing the meal which the strangers were to eat.
The first thing to attract Frank's attention was a woman kneeling on the floor over a flat stone raised at one end, on which she was rolling some dough into very thin sheets. "That must be a tortilla-maker," said Frank; "we have had tortillas several times since we came into the country, but this is the first good chance I've had to see them made."
From his observation at this kitchen, and from subsequent information, the youth made the following note:
MAKING TORTILLAS.
"Tortillas, or cakes, are made from corn-meal, which is ground by hand on a flat stone called a metate, a word of Aztec origin. The corn is soaked in lime-water till the hull can be separated from it, and then it is pounded and rolled upon the metate until it is ground into meal. In this work the woman uses a cylinder of stone something like the American rolling-pin, or very often she uses a flat or slightly rounded stone, with which she pounds and twists for hours. When the meal is sufficiently ground a little water is added, and it is worked into dough; the dough is then rolled or patted in the hand until it is almost as thin as a knife-blade and formed into circular cakes. The cakes are baked on an iron comal, or griddle, which has been previously held over the fire until it is so hot that the cooking is done in a few moments. They are not allowed to brown, and are best when served hot. They are generally without salt or other seasoning, and are very tasteless at first to a stranger; but after one has become accustomed to tortillas he prefers them to any other kind of corn-cake."
The equipment of the kitchen was exceedingly simple, and the youths wondered how a French cook would get along with none but Mexican utensils to get up a meal with. The stove, or cooking range, consisted simply of a wall or bank of solid adobe about two feet high, and of the same width; this bank was built up against one side of the kitchen, which was ten or twelve feet square, and it extended the whole length of that side. There were depressions in the bank, in which small fires of charcoal or wood were burning; on these fires the pots, pans, and griddles were placed, and the process of cooking went on. There was no chimney, the smoke escaping, or being supposed to escape, through an opening in the roof directly over the cooking range.