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P.RR. Anciently, Cherokee women had various methods of baking their bread. Sometimes they made it in thin cakes, and put it on the hot clay or stone, and covered it with hot ashes & coals; and sometimes they covered it first with a shallow earthen pan, and then with ashes and coals. sometimes they put the shallow earthen pan on coals, and baked thin cakes on that. Again they mixed their bread in a large shallow basket. This would be perhaps two feet in diameter. The bottom of this being covered with dough two or three inches thick, the upper side of the dough was smoothed, and covered with cucumber leaves. Then the basket was turned bottom upwards on the hot clay or stone hearth, and taken off, leaving the loaf lying on the leaves. The loaf was then covered with the same kind of leaves, and then with ashes and coals. In this manner they would make loaves as large as they pleased. And that manner of baking gave the bread a most excellent flavour. As they had many ways of baking bread, so they had many kinds of bread to bake in consequence of mixing with their meal, chestnuts, potatoes, beans, pumpkin, etc.etc. They also made excellent bread by boiling the dough, having it first wrapped in corn leaves. They also prepare a most excellent kins of food by boiling corn grits & thickening the soup. Sometimes they put in beans with the grits, and sometimes the meat of hickory or black walnuts. These ingredients render this kind of food a real luxury. Formerly they made great use of parched corn meal. They parched this corn by putting it into a pot with clean, sifted ashes, and setting it on the fire, stirring it constantly while over the fire. When it was sufficiently parched, they sifted out the ashes, leaving the pure corn. Meal made of this they considered not only a luxury but also a great support to nature, and used it on journies and war expeditions etc. They prepared a most delicious dish of parched cornmeal & grapes. They first boiled the grapes, and then thickened the soup with this meal, sometimes to the consistency of honey, and then ate it with wooden or Buffalo horn spoons. The ancient old Indians would not eat the sinew that shrank, because if they did, it was said, that sinew would cramp & prevent their running. They would not eat blood or any creature which died without bleeding. Some now will not eat eels or eat fish. Hawks, owls, Ravens, crows, wood cocks, Red birds etc they must not eat . They considered the Buffalo, the elk, the deer and turkey as the proper meat. Considering their means, the Indian women are evidently among the best cooks in the world.