Meat is roasted on the coals, a favorite method of cooking dried meat or that of small rodents, or it is boiled until well done. In the latter method, according to one informant, it is put on the fire in cold water. The broth is then thrown away lest it cause consumption. A coarse-grained flour is sometimes boiled with the meat to make what a Canadian voyageur would term rubabu.
Occasionally a housewife will be met with among the Pimas who is scrupulously neat and clean in cooking and in the care of the home. Most of the women, however, carry traces of dried dough on their fingers from week's end to week's end, and the cooking vessels know no cleansing except the scraping that seeks the last particle of food that may cling to them, the rasping tongue of the starving dog, or the hasty slopping of a little cold water into them just before using again. The evil effects of slovenliness are reduced, however, by the peculiar conditions, such as the dry air, which saps the moisture from all organic matter, even in the shade; the outdoor cooking place exposed to a sun that withers all germs; and the habit of eating all the food prepared for each meal, which includes the rule of etiquette prescribing that one must eat all that is set before him.
The kitchen is an arrow-bush inclosure, about 4 or 5 meters in diameter (pl. VI, b), containing its set of half a dozen pottery vessels. In the center are the three stones on which the cooking pot rests. Such an inclosure is quite common at the present day, though many have adoped the oval fireplaces of adobe (pl. VI, c), some obtain iron kettle stands from the agency blacksmith, and a few (chiefly those who live in adobe houses) are using modern stoves.
PLANTS USED FOR FOOD
Âʼnûk iʼavak, Atriplex bracteosa var.; A. coronata Wats.; A. elegans Dietrich. These saltbushes, with a few others as yet unidentified, are sometimes boiled with other food because of their salty flavor. They are cooked in pits with the fruit of the cactus, Opuntia arborescens, the method of roasting them being described below. The young shoots of some of them are crisp and tender. Commonly known as "sagebrush," these saltbushes are among the most abundant plants in that region. There are both herbaccous and woody species, the former being eaten by stock and the latter being useful for fuel.
Aʼopa hiʼâsĭk, Populus deltoides Marsh. The cottonwood occurs in a thin fringe, with here and there a grove along the Gila and Salt rivers. In February and March the women send some of the barefoot boys into the tree tops to throw down the catkins, which are then gathered in baskets and carried home to be eaten raw by stripping them off the stem between the teeth.
