Bitter-root is gathered, dried, and boiled with a little sugar.  It is a slender root, an inch or two long and as thick as a goose quill, white in color, and looking like short lengths of spaghetti.  It is very starchy.

In the spring, a certain root called mats was eaten in great quantities.  This plant was known to the early French employees of the Hudson’s Bay and American Fur Companies as pomme blanche (Psoralea esculenta).

All parts of such animals as the buffalo, elk, deer, etc., were eaten, save only the lungs, gall, and one or two other organs.  A favorite way of eating the paunch or stomach was in the raw state.  Liver, too, was sometimes eaten raw.  The unborn calf of a fresh-killed animal, especially buffalo, was considered a great delicacy.  The meat of this, when boiled, is white, tasteless, and insipid.  The small intestines of the buffalo were sometimes dried, but more often were stuffed with long, thin strips of meat.  During the stuffing process, the entrail was turned inside out, thus confining with the meat the sweet white fat that covers the intestine.  The next step was to roast it a little, after which the ends were tied to prevent the escape of the juices, and it was thoroughly boiled in water.  This is a very great delicacy, and when properly prepared is equally appreciated by whites and Indians.

As a rule, there were but two ways of cooking meat,—­boiling and roasting.  If roasted, it was thoroughly cooked; but if boiled, it was only left in the water long enough to lose the red color, say five or ten minutes.  Before they got kettles from the whites, the Blackfeet often boiled meat in a green hide.  A hole was dug in the ground, and the skin, flesh side up, was laid in it, being supported about the edges of the hole by pegs.  The meat and water having been placed in this hollow, red-hot stones were dropped in the water until it became hot and the meat was cooked.

In time of plenty, great quantities of dried meat were prepared for use when fresh meat could not be obtained.  In making dried meat, the thicker parts of an animal were cut in large, thin sheets and hung in the sun to dry.  If the weather was not fine, the meat was often hung up on lines or scaffolds in the upper part of the lodge.  When properly cured and if of good quality, the sheets were about one-fourth of an inch thick and very brittle.  The back fat of the buffalo was also dried, and eaten with the meat as we eat butter with bread.  Pemmican was made of the flesh of the buffalo.  The meat was dried in the usual way; and, for this use, only lean meat, such as the hams, loin, and shoulders, was chosen.  When the time came for making the pemmican, two large fires were built of dry quaking aspen wood, and these were allowed to burn down to red coals.  The old women brought the dried meat to these fires, and the sheets of meat were thrown on the coals of one of them, allowed to heat through, turned to keep them