Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/33

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Ovens are made outside the dwellings by digging holes in the ground, plastering them with mud, and keeping a fire in them till quite hot, then withdrawing the embers and lining the holes with wet grass. The flesh, fish, or roots are put into baskets, which are placed in the oven and covered with more wet grass, gravel, hot stones, and earth, and kept covered till they are cooked. This is done in the evening; and, when cooking is in common — which is generally the case when many families live together — each family comes next morning and removes its basket of food for breakfast.

Ovens on a greater scale, for cooking large animals, are formed and heated in the same way, with the addition of stones at the bottom of the oven; and emus, wombats, turkeys, or forest kangaroos — sometimes unskinned and entire, and sometimes cut into pieces — are placed in them, and covered with leafy branches, wet grass, a sheet of bark, and embers on the top. Ordinary cooking, such as roasting opossums, small birds, and eels, is generally done on the embers of the domestic fire. When opossums are killed expressly for food, and not for the skin, the fur is plucked or singed off while the animal is still warm; the entrails are pulled out through an opening in the skin, stripped of their contents, and eaten raw, and their place stuffed with herbs ; the body is then toasted and turned slowly before the fire without breaking the skin, and, if not immediately required for food, is set aside to cool. Opossum thus prepared will keep and may be carried about much better than if uncooked. In this way the natives make provision for travelling through country where food is scarce. They are very fond of opossum when the animal is in ordinary condition, but dislike it when fat. Kangaroo tails are cooked unskinned, first singeing and scraping off the hair, and then toasting them before the fire till thoroughly done. By this method none of the juices of the meat escape; and what would otherwise be dry food is made savoury and nutritious. As the sinews, however, which are very strong, would render the meat tough, they are all pulled out previous to toasting, and are stretched and dried, and are