I put on an iron kettle nearly full of water, and brought it to a boil. Into the boiling water I put the ashes, stirring them about with a stick. Then I set the pot off to steep for a short time.
When the ashes had settled I poured the lye off into a vessel and cleaned the pot thoroughly.
In earlier times the ashes were boiled in an earthen pot as indeed I have often seen it done when I was a girl. I was not quite twenty when we bought an iron pot for cooking. Before that we used only earthen pots for cooking in our family.
Having cleaned the pot I poured the lye back into it, put the pot on the fire, and added shelled, ripe, dried corn. This I boiled until the hulls came off the grain and the corn kernels appeared white.
I added a little water, and took the pot off the fire; I drained off the lye.
I poured water into the pot and washed the corn, rubbing the kernels between my palms; I drained off the water.
I poured in water and washed the corn a second time, in the same way; I drained off the water.
Again I put water in the pot and boiled the corn in it. As the corn was already soft, this boiling did not take long. I now added fats, and beans, and sometimes dried squash, all at the same time; and the pot I replaced on the fire. When the beans and squash were cooked, the mess was ready to eat.
Corn so prepared we call mạdạpo´zi pạ´kici, or boiled-whole-corn rubbed. It is so called because the hulls of the kernels were rubbed off between the palms at the time the corn was washed in water after the lye was poured off.