FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>  
" a word which has been abbreviated and modified to "_Hickory_," the name by which we now designate not only the nuts, but the tree and its wood. It is interesting to note that a similar creamy or butter-like substance was derived by a similar process from various palm nuts in Central and South America. Cieza de Leon describes such a process in his Chronicle of Peru, in connection with a nut which was described as _Cocos butyraceae_, but which was not a true _Cocos_, or coconut. Long before the discovery of America, a somewhat similar process was used in the Nicobar Islands for extracting a creamy substance from the grated kernel of the true coconut, _Cocos nucifera_, which in early times was called _Nux indica_. This process is still followed throughout Polynesia. Some of the most savory dishes of the Samoans and the natives of Guam are enriched and flavored with this coconut cream, which is a substance quite distinct from the water, or so-called milk, contained in the hollow kernel of the nut, which is so commonly used for drinking. Coming back to America, I would call attention to the value of some of our native pine nuts and acorns as food staples. Certain Indian tribes of the Southwest live upon pine nuts at certain seasons when they are ripe. Dr. C. Hart Merriam has told of the utilization of acorns by various tribes of Indians in a beautifully illustrated article published in the National Geographic Magazine, 1918, entitled "The Acorn, a Possibly Neglected Source of Food." "To the native Indians of California," he says, "the acorn is, and always has been, the staff of life, furnishing the material for their daily mush and bread." He describes the process of gathering and storing them, shelling, drying, grinding the kernels, leaching out the bitter tannic acid, and preparing the acorn meal in various ways for food. In eastern North America, several species of acorns were somewhat similarly used, including those of the live oaks of our southern states. The Spaniards of Florida sometimes toasted them and used them as a substitute for chocolate or coffee. Chinkapins were used for food by the earliest English colonists. They are mentioned by Herriot, the historian of Sir Walter Raleigh's colony at Roanoke. In addition to these, the early colonists learned to eat the so-called "water-chinkapins", which are fruits of the beautiful golden-flowered American lotus, _Nelumbo lutea_, a plant closely allied to the sacred l
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>  



Top keywords:

process

 

America

 

called

 
similar
 
coconut
 

substance

 
acorns
 

colonists

 

native

 

kernel


tribes
 

Indians

 

creamy

 

describes

 

drying

 
grinding
 

kernels

 

leaching

 

shelling

 
modified

gathering

 
storing
 

bitter

 

eastern

 

Magazine

 

abbreviated

 

tannic

 
preparing
 

California

 

Source


Neglected

 

Possibly

 

Hickory

 

species

 

material

 

furnishing

 

entitled

 

similarly

 

chinkapins

 

fruits


beautiful

 

learned

 

colony

 

Roanoke

 

addition

 

golden

 
flowered
 

closely

 

allied

 

sacred