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Zuni Indian Bread
1 cup white corn meal 1 cup yellow corn meal 1 cup water 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon cayenne 1 cup chopped butter Mix all well together; form into rolls about five inches long; roll in greased paper, and bake in a moderate oven one hour. Serve hot. The Indians roll these cakes in husks of corn.
A stiff, very rich cornmeal dough baked in wrapped cylinders rather than a pan. The proportions look strange on the page, and the wrapping is the part that makes it work.
- "Chopped butter" means cold, cut in"Chopped butter" most likely means butter cut into small pieces rather than melted or creamed, though the recipe says only to "mix all well together" and gives no further guidance on how far to work it in. A cup of butter to two cups of meal is a very high ratio, and the dough will feel more like a crumbly pastry than a batter.
- The dough is meant to be dryOne cup of water for two cups of cornmeal gives a mass you press together rather than pour. If it will not hold a shape, add water a tablespoon at a time; a loose dough will slump out of the wrapper.
- Moderate oven350F. At an hour, the rolls cook through by steaming inside their wrapper more than by browning, so expect pale outsides.
- Two colors of mealWhite and yellow cornmeal behave much the same; the recipe does not say why both are used, and the reason may be appearance or a slight difference in flavor. Stone-ground meal of either color will be coarser than degerminated supermarket meal.
- Greased paperParchment is the direct modern substitute, twisted closed at both ends like a cracker. Waxed paper is not oven-safe and foil will not let any moisture escape.
- Corn husksDried husks sold for tamales work as the recipe's own alternative. Soak them in hot water for 30 minutes until pliable, wrap, and tie the ends with strips of husk.
- CayenneAn eighth of a teaspoon across the whole batch is background warmth, not heat. It can be increased or dropped without affecting the structure.
- Yield and servingRoughly six rolls of five inches. They are best hot from the oven, unwrapped at the table; once cold the butter sets and they turn dense.
Cookbooks of the early twentieth century collected a good many dishes labeled "Indian," and the attributions were often loose — a recipe printed in an English-language household manual has usually passed through several hands before reaching the page, and this one, with its cup of butter and pinch of cayenne, appears to have been adapted for a non-Native kitchen. What is genuine is the technique: corn baked or steamed inside its own husk is documented across the maize-growing peoples of the Americas, from Pueblo cooking in the Southwest to the tamal traditions of Mexico and Central America, and the husk serves as both wrapper and cooking vessel.