The vocabulary of corn in the Hopi language is extensive and contains words descriptive even of the parts of the plant that are lacking to most civilized people. The importance of corn is also reflected in the numerous words describing the kinds of meal, the dishes made from corn or in which corn enters, and of the various ways in which it is prepared by fire for the consumption of the ever-hungry Hopi. To give an incomplete census of corn foods, there are fifteen kinds of _piki_ or paper bread, three kinds of mush; five of short-cake; eleven of boiled corn; four kinds baked or roasted in the coals; two cooked by frying; four stewed and eight of cooked shelled corn, making fifty-two varieties. After the paper bread, perhaps the most popular food is _pigame_, or sweet corn mush, wrapped in corn-husk and baked in an underground oven. Another standby is shelled corn soaked and boiled till each grain swells to several times the normal size. The Hopi like their food well-cooked and know the art of making each starch grain expand to the limit. A book of Hopi cookery would be bulky, but how interesting to the housewife who would know how to make plain food appetizing without milk or eggs, and who would learn new and strange combinations! There are cakes made from dried fruits, chopped meat, and straw, put on the roof to dry; dumplings formed around old hammerstones, corn dodgers, pats of corn-meal mush wrapped in corn husk and boiled or baked, and many other styles of food that would seem strange to other than a Hopi epicure. When it is time to dine, a large bowl of stew is placed on the floor as the _piece de resistance_ and beside it a tray of _piki_. Each member of the family breaks off a piece of _piki_, and, holding it between thumb and finger, it is dragged through the stew much like a seine to catch as many particles of meat as possible, then deposited far back in the mouth so that the stew adhering to the fingers may be cleared off with a resounding smack of the lips. A traveler to Hopi in 1869 describes a more formal meal which consisted of mutton, dried peaches, blue _piki_, coffee, and a drink made by steeping the roasted heart of agave in water. This writer says: You take a small piece, lay a fragment of mutton and some peaches upon it or a little of the sweet liquid and bolt the mass, spoon and all. This dinner, though prepared and cooked by Indians, tasted better than many a meal eaten by us in border settlements cooked by whites.