Preservation and Storage: Both animal and vegetable foods were preserved by drying.[88]With this technique, there was constant danger of spoilage through dampness. Prior to the arrival of the European settlers, salt was not available to the Wampanoags for food preservation.[89]The method of drying fish and shellfish was to cut it into thin strips and hang it on a scaffold over a fire prepared for that purpose. Both the sun and the fire worked to dry the fish quickly; the fire served the additional purpose of keeping away flies, which would have spoiled the food.[90]At night or when the weather was humid, the drying fish was moved to the warm, smoky interior of the wigwam to hang above the fireplace.[91]Corn, chestnuts, currants, beans, and acorns were also preserved by drying. There is no description of the process, save that they were spread out on mats.[92]
Vegetable foods were stored in specially constructed pits in the ground. After they had been dug, the pits were lined with woven mats. The dried fruits or vegetables that were to be stored were put into large baskets (The Pilgrims told of digging up one such basket that had a capacity of three or four bushels[93]); the baskets were put into the pits, covered with more mats and perhaps wooden planks, and the whole thing was covered with earth so that a small mound marking the place was formed.[94]When such could be obtained, a metal pot rather than a basket might serve as a storage container.[95]The dried fish was also stored for winter use, but there is no mention of its being put into the storage pits. It might have been kept in some sort of woven or bark container in the house.[96]
Food Preparation: Meat and fish were prepared by boiling or roasting.[97]Meat was roasted by putting it on the end of a forked stick placed in the ground near the fire.[98]Fresh or dried meat, fish, and shellfish were cut into small pieces and boiled into a stew—whose constituent parts probably varied according to what was available on any given day. A pot of this stew was probably kept over the fire almost all the time, and as some was eaten new ingredients were added. As the following passage by Wood suggests, it was “... made thicke with Fishes, Fowles, and Beasts boyled all together; some remaining raw, the rest converted by over-much seething to a loathed mash....”[99]Vegetables were also added to the stew pot. Jerusalem artichokes, ground nuts and other roots, pumpkins, squashes, corn, and beans are mentioned specifically.[100]Walnuts, acorns, and chestnuts were ground into a powder and added to the broth to thicken it.[101]Clam juice, which functioned as a substitute for salt, was added as seasoning.[102]Williams tells of another sort of dish, prepared from the heads of bass, “... the braines and fat of it being very much and sweet as marrow”.[103]Notes by John Winthrop give the designationSukatashto a dish which is venison, fish and Indian corn boiled together.[104]
Vegetable foods were also prepared in a number of other ways and combinations. Whole corn was boiled—with or without beans.[105]Corn ground into meal was an important item in the diet of the Wampanoags. Corn kernels were dried and parched in the coals of the fire. Ashes were then sifted out of the parched corn, and it was ground fine with hand milling equipment. A woman then sifted the meal through a basketry sieve to catch out unground lumps, and the result was a meal calledNocake. Nocake was the food of anyone when on a journey away from home. A few spoonfuls made a meal; it was taken with water to facilitate swallowing.[106]
For use at home, the parched meal might be mixed with water and boiled into a porridge.[107]In a more elaborate recipe it was mixed with crushed strawberries, made into dough, wrapped in leaves and baked in the ashes to make a kind of bread.[108]It was also made into small cakes that were boiled. Williams mentions a dish made by mixing corn meal with powdered dried currants, “... which is as sweet to them as plum or spice cake to the English”.[109]He also says that clam juice was used as a seasoning for bread.[110]
Of the nuts used by the Wampanoags, acorns required additional work, since the bitter tannic acid had to be removed from them by some sort of leaching process before they could be eaten. This was done by boiling.[111]Oil was extracted from walnuts and used for a variety of purposes.[112]