This Pith Is Cut Or Broken Down Into A Coarse Powder By
Means Of A Tool Constructed For The Purpose - A Club Of Hard And
Heavy Wood, Having A Piece Of Sharp Quartz Rock Firmly Imbedded
Into Its Blunt End, And Projecting About Half An Inch.
By
successive blows of this, narrow strips of the pith are cut away,
and fall down into the cylinder formed by the bark.
Proceeding
steadily on, the whole trunk is cleared out, leaving a skin not
more than half an inch in thickness. This material is carried
away (in baskets made of the sheathing bases of the leaves) to
the nearest water, where a washing-machine is put up, which is
composed almost entirely of the saga tree itself. The large
sheathing bases of the leaves form the troughs, and the fibrous
covering from the leaf-stalks of the young cocoa-nut the
strainer. Water is poured on the mass of pith, which is kneaded
and pressed against the strainer till the starch is all dissolved
and has passed through, when the fibrous refuse is thrown away,
and a fresh basketful put in its place. The water charged with
sago starch passes on to a trough, with a depression in the
centre, where the sediment is deposited, the surplus water
trickling off by a shallow outlet. When the trough is nearly
full, the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish tinge, is
made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and neatly
covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago.
Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a
rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and
chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it
into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits
side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six
or eight inches square. The raw sago is broken up, dried in the
sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The oven is heated over a clear
fire of embers, and is lightly filled with the sago-powder. The
openings are then covered with a flat piece of sago bark, and in
about five minutes the cakes are turned out sufficiently baked.
The hot cakes are very nice with butter, and when made with the
addition of a little sugar and grated cocoa-nut are quite a
delicacy. They are soft, and something like corn-flour cakes, but
leave a slight characteristic flavour which is lost in the
refined sago we use in this country. When not wanted for
immediate use, they are dried for several days in the sun, and
tied up in bundles of twenty. They will then keep for years; they
are very hard, and very rough and dry, but the people are used to
them from infancy, and little children may be seen gnawing at
them as contentedly as ours with their bread-and-butter. If
dipped in water and then toasted, they become almost as good as
when fresh baked; and thus treated they were my daily substitute
for bread with my coffee.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 56 of 213
Words from 28648 to 29172
of 111511
