Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/237

Rh indeed described as marvels of bodily strength, beauty, and agility, because these facts have an important bearing on the question of their food. As there can be no such bodily growth, strength, and activity, as is described as belonging to these people, without superior nourishment, it follows that the food used by the Guanches, and adopted and still almost exclusively used by the present inhabitants, must be highly nutritious.

This article, so evidently important, is the gofio, named at the head of this paper. There is nothing mysterious about it, for gofio is simply flour made from any of the cereals by parching or roasting before grinding. The Guanches may have roasted their wheat, barley, etc., by the ready method of first heating stones, on which or among which the grain was afterward placed. As to that there are no precise accounts, but well-shaped grinding-stones are plentifully preserved. At present gofio is prepared by roasting the grain in a broad, shallow earthen dish, over a charcoal-fire. It is kept constantly stirred, to prevent burning. One can hardly pass through a village or hamlet without witnessing some stage of the preparation of gofio. The grain is first carefully picked over and all impurities removed. The processes frequently take place in front of or just within the always-open door, giving the traveler ample opportunity to see all steps of the preparation. The grinding is done at the wind-mills, which abound everywhere. The roasted grain is ground to a very fine flour, when it becomes gofio. After grinding it is ready for immediate use. When it is to be eaten, milk, soup, or any suitable fluid, may be mixed with it—anything, in fact, to give it sufficient consistency to be conveyed into the mouth. Being already cooked, it requires no further preparation before eating.

Ultimately maize was introduced into the islands, and soon became an article of general cultivation, particularly on the Island of Grand Canary, where gofio from it is the staple article of food for the laboring population, as that from wheat or wheat mixed with maize is in Teneriffe, wheat being more largely grown in the latter island. Gofio is also made from barley, and especially in Fuerteventura. It is also made from Spanish beans; but this kind is not used alone, but to mix in the proportion of about one fourth to three fourths of wheat, barley, or maize gofio, as some prefer. Wheat and corn gofio, mixed in equal proportions, is very much used, and is preferred by many to either article alone. Nothing can exceed the extreme handiness of this ready-cooked article of food. The Canarian laborer, if alone, takes some gofio in a bag made of the stomach of a kid; if there are several persons, the skin of a kid is used. When the hour for the simple meal has arrived, the bag is extracted from some pocket, or, likely enough, from the girdle, and putting a little water into it, after being well shaken, the meal is ready. Only enough water is added to make it sufficiently consistent to be readily taken in the hand, from which it is invariably