ll a Hog it seems to be almost equally divided among all his
Dependents, and as these are generally very numerous, it is but a little
that come to each person's share, so that their chief food is Vegetables,
and of these they eat a large quantity.

Cookery seems to have been but little studied here; they have only 2
Methods of applying Fire--broiling and Baking, as we called it; the
method this is done I have before described, and I am of Opinion that
Victuals dressed this way are more juicy and more equally done than by
any of our Methods, large Fish in particular, Bread Fruit, Bananoes.
Plantains Cooked this way eat like boil'd Potatoes, and was much used by
us by way of bread whenever we could get them. Of bread Fruit they make 2
or 3 dishes by beating it with a Stone Pestle till it makes a Paste,
mixing Water or Cocoa Nut Liquor, or both, with it, and adding ripe
Plantains, Bananoes, Sour Paste, etc.

This last is made from bread Fruit in the following manner. This fruit,
from what I can find, remains in Season only 8 or 9 months in the year,
and as it is the Chief support of the inhabitants a reserve of food must
be made for those months when they are without it. To do this the Fruit
is gathered when upon the point of ripening; after the rinde is scraped
off it is laid in heaps and coverd close with leaves, where it undergoes
a fermentation, and becomes soft and disagreeably sweet. The Core is then
taken out, and the rest of the fruit thrown into a Hole dug for that
purpose, the sides and bottom of which are neatly laid with grass. The
whole is covered with leaves and heavy stones laid upon them; here it
undergoes a second Fermentation and becomes sourish, in which condition
they say it will keep good 10 or 12 months. As they want to use it they
make it into balls, which they wrap up in leaves and bake in the same
manner as they do the Fruit from the Tree; it is then ready for eating
either hot or cold, and hath a sour and disagreeable taste. In this last
State it will keep good a Month or 6 Weeks; it is called by them Mahai,
and they seldom make a Meal without some of it, one way or another. To
this plain diet Salt Water is the universal sauce, hardly any one sets
down to a meal without a Cocoa Nut shell full of it standing by them,
into which they dip most of what they Eat, especially Fish, drinking at
Intervals large sops of it out of their Hands, so that a man may use half
a Pint at a Meal.

It is not common