Two women sat in front grinding, and as they proceeded filled the flour into a basket. My hostess, seated on the ground, had in her lap a round wooden tray three feet in diameter, the edge resting on the round. The flour-basket was on the right hand, a jar of water on the left. She first took a handful of flour, and dusted it into the tray, then, dipping both hands in the water, passed them through it, and so continued dusting and dipping and then making sweeps right and left through the growing mass, which gradually shaped itself into small grains. The fingers passing quickly and lightly, through and over it, the little moistened particles were augmented from the dry flour, and new ones formed. The art consists in causing it to granulate, and in preventing it from clotting. Each grain receives with its several coatings pressure and manipulation. We are all familiar with the change of substance produced by working crumbs of bread between the fingers; and in some analogous change appears to consist the secret of this dish. The fact that the tray was sufficiently full, was notified to me by a smart nudge of the elbow. It was then brought upon an even keel, and she dashed away amongst it with both hands in a fine style: it was then thrown into a sieve of pierced sheepskin; and, shaken and tossed, the smaller grains passed through below, the larger were brushed away from the top: the size, which varies, was, in this case, about that of a large pin’s head. The operation was now completed, and it came forth a grain reconstructed from the flour by a process which rendered it fit for food, without fermentation, and almost without firing. From the sieve it is turned into a conical basket of palmetto leaves and placed on the top of one of the long-necked jars boiling on the fire. In a quarter of an hour it is cooked, or rather heated. It is curious to find steam employed, in probably the most ancient of made-dishes. In this simple form, or with buttermilk, kuscoussoo constitutes the common food of the people. Fowls or meat, when used, are stewed in the pot over which it is steamed: the gravy is poured over it, and the meat or fowl perched on the top. In these cases, it is turned of course out of the basket into an earthen dish. Gideon in his cookery used a basket and a dish.