There were three meals a day, morning, noon, and night, and among the higher class, at least, banquets and feasts were quite numerous. The food was cooked and eaten from pots, bowls, and dishes of pottery. Maize, when green, was boiled and eaten, as roasting-ears with us now, and when dry it was sometimes parched or roasted. It was usually ground into meal and prepared in the form of cakes. To prepare the meal, the grain was thrown into boiling water, in which, lime had been placed, and then the hull was removed. It was then washed and ground on grinding-stones, called _metlatl_, and then kneaded and rolled into cakes and baked, there having been many kinds of cakes. The meal was also boiled and made into porridge or gruel. Beans were boiled when green and also when dry. Meats were stewed, boiled, and roasted. Pepper was quite freely used, as was also salt. Fruits were eaten raw, although some, as the plantain and banana, were roasted and stewed. There were two national drinks, _octli_ and _chocolatl_, now known as pulque and chocolate, the first an intoxicant made from the maguey and the second from the cacao. There were other fermented drinks prepared from grain, and a kind of mushroom was used to put into drinks to make them more intoxicating. Intoxication was excusable in older people but the young people were severely punished for it and even in case of intemperance death was the punishment paid to the young while with the older persons only loss of rank and property was the punishment. Tobacco was used by the Mexicans, having been smoked in pipes or in the form of cigars, and also it was made into snuff and used. "A kind of chewing-gum was prepared from resin or bitumen, though its use, at any rate in public, was confined by custom to unmarried girls."[7] Human flesh also was eaten. This was not used as a common food but as a religious rite. The sacrifice was made on an elevated place and after the victim's heart was taken out as an offering to the gods, and if a warrior his head was taken off to be preserved as a trophy, the body was then cast down the steps and taken by minor priests and prepared for the table as other animals. A thigh was sent to the king's palace and the remainder was taken to the home of the warrior who captured the victim or if a slave to the house of the owner, who had the human flesh prepared with other dishes and served up in an entertainment to his friends. "This was not the coarse repast of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming with delicious beverages and delicate viands, prepared with art, and attended by both sexes, who, as we shall see hereafter, conducted themselves with all the decorum of civilized life."[8]