n which it is made palatable and nutritious are
numerous, and appear under names of American origin that will sound
strange in the English ear. Before the corn is ripe it is frequently
roasted in the state of green ears. "When the whole of the grains are
brown, you lay them in a dish and put them upon the table; they are so
many little bags of roasted milk, the sweetest that can be imagined, or,
rather, are of the most delightful taste. You leave a little tail of the
ear, two inches long, or thereabouts, to turn it and handle it by. You
take a thin piece of butter, which will cling to the knife on one side,
while you gently rub it over the ear from the other side; then the ear
is buttered: then you take a little salt according to your fancy, and
sprinkle it over the ear: you then take the tail of the ear in one hand,
and bite the grains off the cobb." In the shape of _porridge_ the corn
is called _suppawn_.

_Mush_ is another form of the corn meal; Mr. Cobbett says, "it is not a
word to squall out over a piano-forte," "but it is a very good word, and
a real English word." It seems to mean something which is half pudding,
half porridge. _Homany_ is the shape in which the corn meal is generally
used in the southern states of America, but Mr. Cobbett has never seen
it. _Samp_ is the corn skinned, as we shell oats, or make pearl barley;
it is then boiled with pork or other meat, as we boil peas. It is in
fact corn soup, superior to all preparations of pulse, on account of
their indigestible qualities.

The corn flour is not so adhesive as the wheat flour; it is consequently
not so well adapted to puddings and bread-making: nevertheless, Mr.
Cobbett contrives to show that his corn can make both inimitably; but in
respect of cakes there are no cakes in the world like the corn-cakes of
America. They have the additional merit of being made in a minute: "A
Yankee will set hunger at defiance if you turn him into a wilderness
with a flint and steel, and a bag of corn-meal or flour. He comes to the
spot where he means to make his cookery, makes a large wood fire upon
the ground, which soon consumes every thing combustible beneath, and
produces a large heap of coals. While the fire is preparing itself, the
Yankee takes a little wooden or tin bowl (many a one has done it in the
crown of his hat), in which he mixes up a sufficient quantity of his
meal with water, and forms it into a cake of about a couple of inches
thick. With a pole