and serve it, like mashed turnips. Dip your spoon in the middle when you help it. In some parts of America, what they call hommony is made of the cracked corn: and if so, it must be something of the same kind as our peas-pudding, but not boiled in a cloth.
The best thing to prepare this in, is a three legged iron pot, hung over the fire. Let the fire be hot, and also blazing, if possible. To a quart of water, when it boils, put in a little salt, then add 12 oz. of meal, but be careful to do it in the following manner: while the water is boiling stir in half the meal first, but be sure to stir quickly all the time, or it may be lumpy, then you may put in the remainder at once, but keep stirring constantly. When it has been on the fire a quarter of an hour, cease to stir, take the pot off the fire and set it on the floor for two minutes, then put it on the fire again, and you will see the polenta first rise in a great puff, then break and fall; as soon as you perceive this, take it off the fire, and turn it out into a dish; it ought to come out quite clean, not leaving a particle adhering to the pot, else there has been some fault in the boiling. It is stirred with a long stick, thicker at one end than the other. Of this the Italians make an endless variety of dishes, some of which are the following: the most simple mode of dressing the polenta is thus: pour it from the boiling into a bowl, when cold turn it out; take a coarse thread in your two hands, put it on the side of the polenta away from you, draw the thread towards you, and you will find that it cuts a clean slice of polenta off, continue till you have cut it all into slices, and then you may dress them in different ways: the commonest is to cut the slices thick and brown them on a gridiron.
Rice should be soaked an hour in cold water. Wash well, and pick, a tea-cupful of good rice, boil it slowly ten minutes, in a little water, pour that off, and pour over the rice 1½ pint of new milk; let the milk boil up, pour it into a deep dish, stir in a bit of butter, sugar to your taste, a little pounded cinnamon, and grated lemon peel;
