BAKED IN COALS

One of John Peabody Harrington’s Chumash informants remembers that they made balls of meal and baked them by burying them in the rescolda, i.e., coals of the fire. Those that he saw made that way were of wheat flour. He ate these many times. Instead of baking them on a "comal" (a steatite slab used by the Indians as frying pans and for heating water) or anything else, "they baked it thus." The cakes were about five inches in diameter, two inches thick and round in shape.They were called ikujash. (from the notes of  John Peabody Harrington)

This technique of cooking was traditional among the Chumash. Ground seed, including sages, islay (holly-leaf cherry), various grasses, and acorns were included. While wheat flower was done this way, the method of cooking seems to have remained the same. The wheat flour may or may not have included preparation with yeast.

                                                                                    Mike Kuhn

12-1-04