ding; griddle-cakes, made with eggs and milk; hoe-cake, or Indian bread, baked in shallow pans; samp or hominy, corn coarsely broken and boiled; Jonikin, thin, wafer-like sheets, toasted on a board; these are all eaten at breakfast, with butter. Then we have the tender young ears, boiled as a vegetable; or the young grain mixed with beans, forming the common Indian dish of succotash; the kernel is also dried, and then thoroughly boiled for a winter vegetable. Again, we have also Indian puddings, and dumplings, and sometimes lighter cakes for more delicate dishes. The meal is also frequently mixed with wheat in country-made bread, making it very sweet and nutritious. Besides these different ways of cooking the maize, we should not forget parched or “popped” corn, in which the children delight so much; and a very nice thing it is when the right kind of corn is used, and the glossy yellow husk cracks without burning, and the kernel bursts through pure, and white, and nicely toasted. A great deal of popped corn is now used in New York and Philadelphia by the confectioners, who make it up into sugar-plums, like pralines. Acres of “popping corn” are now raised near the large towns, expressly for this purpose; the varieties called rice-corn, and Egyptian corn, are used, the last kind being a native of this country, like the others.
The word sapaen has sometimes been supposed of Indian origin. It is not found in any dictionary that we know of, though in very common use in some parts of the country. Vanderdonck speaks of the dish:[1] “Their common food, and for which their meal is generally used, is pap, or mush, which in the New Netherlands is named sapaen. This is so common among the Indians that they
- ↑ In 1653.
