A seasoning of spring salt, as we called it, was often added. A small palmful of the salt was mixed with a little water in a horn spoon; this dissolved the salt and let the sand and dirt drop to the bottom. The dissolved salt was poured off through the fingers, held to the mouth of the horn spoon; this strained out the sand and dirt. The salt turned the mush slightly yellow.
As the soft mush boiled up in the cooking, we were fond of dipping a horn spoon into it, and licking off the back of the spoon. This was especially a children’s habit.
Also at morning and evening meals we ate hard white corn parched and mixed with fats; or mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a, boiled whole corn.
Atạ´ki
This is a soft, or as you call it, a flour corn, and was perhaps the favorite variety grown by us. The word atạ´ki means white; but when applied to corn we translate soft white, to distinguish from atạ´ki tso´ki, or hard white.
The use of atạ´ki, or soft white, was very general, since it could be made into almost every kind of corn food used by us. “It is the one variety,” we used to say, “that can be used in any and every way.”
Soft white corn, parched and pounded into a meal, was boiled with squash and beans to make mäpi´ nakapa´. The unparched grain was pounded for meal to make mä´nakapa; but although good, we did not think the mush made from soft white meal was as good as that from the hard white corn meal.
Boiled Corn Ball. A less frequent dish made from soft white corn was boiled corn balls; it was made only from the dried ripe grain.
I pounded a quantity of grain into meal, and poured the meal into a pot having hot water—but not too much water—stirring it well about. I now lifted out some of the mass into my left palm and patted it down with my right, making a cake about as big around as a baking powder biscuit, but not so thick. This cake I dropped into a pot of boiling water, where it sank to the bottom. I continued until the pot was full, or until I had all I wished to cook.
No salt or other seasoning was added.