cvtvhakv
“stone-resembling”
blue dumplings
Charles Gibson, 1918
A gallon, or more if needed, of shelled flint corn should be soaked overnight in a strong solution of ash-lye (water with ash-lye drippings).
Pour off any excess solution in the morning. Pound the corn in the mortar and break the grain into large pieces. Clean off the husks from the grain in a fanner. Pound the clean, broken grain to meal, taking the mass out of the mortar and sifting it from time to time until all the grain is pounded down to a fine meal. Mix a quart of this meal to a stiff dough with boiling water to which add about a cupful of strong ash-lye drippings. A larger amount of dough can be made by using the same proportions of meal and ash-lye drippings. Form pieces of the dough into the shape and size of ordinary doughnuts, with a hole in the center, and bake these in a Dutch oven until thoroughly done. Place the freshly baked bread in the sunshine until perfectly dry. It will be hard as wood. The rings of hard bread were strung on heavy string, and hung on the wall or rafters to keep indefinitely.
Creek Indian hunters used to carry strings of this bread tied to their saddles, on long hunting expeditions, without cover from rain or snow or any kind of weather. The backbone joints of fresh game—antelope, deer, buffalo—were stewed until tender; then a dozen or so of the hard, dry corn bread rings were put into the pot and after cooking for a little while they softened and mixed in the stew. It is told that this was the Creek Indian hunter’s choice bread; it was his ration on the war path.
Lilah D. Lindsey, 1933
Scald whole white corn in lye water, drain until dry, pound into meal. Burn pea hulls (black eyed or cow pea, or any kind) and pound to a powder, sift and add to your corn meal; using hot water, knead into balls size of baseball, drop into boiling water and cook one-half hour. To one part of meal use one-half part pea meal.
James H. Hill, ca. 1936-40
Shell black corn, put water in a pot to boil, set it over the fire, put in a small amount of strong ashes without any charcoal, and when it boils, put in the shelled corn, and after it boils, take out the corn, and wash it off until all the corn skin is removed; and when it’s dry, put it in a mortar, and when you pound it with the pestle, add fine ashes from bean hulls or burnt corn cobs, pound it fine, sift it with a fanner, remove the fine portion, stir in some boiled beans that have been cooked, mix it with water, and when it’s stiff, break off about one handful, squeeze it, make it into a ball, or make it flat and round, and when they’ve been placed in boiling water and have cooked, they call it cvtvhakv.
It’s good to drink the soupy juice.
Beulah Simms, 1970
Soak two quarts flint corn in water until it is soft. Pound in keco with kecvpe while the corn is soft and wet. Sift in a ‘senweskv and separate the large kernels from the fine powder. Mix pea hull powder with the corn meal. Drop in three or four drops of kvpe-cvfke for flavor.
Mix with boiling water and form into biscuits and drop into boiling water and boil until cooked. It should boil about one hour. Beans or sweet potatoes may be mixed in before making into biscuits.
Serve with fresh pork.
Native American Recipes, 1996
Put one-half cup ash-lye in a large pot of water and boil. Use enough water to mix with four cups cornmeal and three tablespoons bean hull powder and form into dough. Form into balls a little larger than golf balls and drop into a pot of boiling water. Cook for one hour. Serve hot.
When using corn flour (Spanish flour may be substituted for cornmeal), prepare in same way except pat the dough balls until thin. Cook in boiling water until done, about one hour.
Marquis Martin, 2006
Mix about four pounds masa cornmeal and three tablespoons of bluing, add warm water until thin enough to roll into golf-ball size balls. Boil in water until they float to the top.
Bertha Tilkens, 2009
Grind dried corn until you have a very fine meal, like cornmeal. The meal will be white or maybe slightly tan in color. To make the bread blue, color is added by using dry bean hulls.
To cook the blue bread, put water in a pot (the amount of water and size of the pot depend on how much blue bread you plan to make) and bring it to a rolling boil. Use some of the water to mix with the dried corn/bean hull mixture. Add just enough so that the dough sticks together, about the consistency of pie dough. When it comes to the right consistency, pinch off golfball-sized pieces of the dough, roll it in your hands, and pat it to flatten it somewhat, then drop the dough in the boiling water. This makes a very moist bread that is done when the dough has floated in the water for some time.
All symposium activities were free and open to the public thanks to funding provided by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and both A. D. Ellis and Alfred Berryhill were on hand to welcome participants to the Capitol Complex.
Mvskoke Country 