Masamora, Achota, Boya, Bollo, Arracacha, Mochilla, Ruana (1838)

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BOGOTA
IN 1836-7
by J. Steuart
New-York: Harper & Brothers
1838

   No one from OED has read this book in its 165 years?


Pg. 78:  When seven miles distant from Nare we reached the bodega
(storehouse), a very neat brick building, the roof covered with tiles, having a house and
garden attached for the accommodation of the keeper.

Pg. 121:  If a person wishes to send a hundred doubloons to the seaboard, he
must place them in one of the little bags of the country, called mochillas;...
   (The revised OED has 1856 for mochila--ed.)

Pg. 150:  _Living._--Their style of cooking is peculiarly their own.  I speak
thus, as I have never been in Spain nor in any other Spanish province before.
 (Pg. 151--ed.)  If it be Spanish, then Heaven defend me from all such.
Their chocolate, and a dish called "masamora," with any of their thousand and one
"dulces" or preserves, are all that can be mentioned in favour of native
cookery.  In the houses of the more fashionable and opulent, the dishes generally
are a mixture of the French and English; more, however, of the former.  But the
daily rations of a peon (labourer) are soon described.  If he keeps house,
his breakfast consists of chocolate.  A soup is boiled rice, and a vegetable
like the parsnip, called arracacha, all simmered together in a flood of
hog's-lard, the whole highly coloured with a pod they call achota, which produces a
yellow colour; a handful of cumin-seed is added to this, and then they have
prepared their general breakfast.  Sometimes, when circumstances admit, they add to
their rice a few pieces of meat.  Bread, being high, is seldom used, but its
place is supplied by either a sort of hard dumpling, made of Indian cornmeal,
called "boya," or the cassava bread.  Another great national dish is that of
"masamora."  This is a thick soup, made of Indian cornmeal, potatoes boiled to
a jelly, onions, and pieces of beef; which, when free from the cumin-seed, is
a most excellent dish.  There is no such thing as a fork used by  this class
of the people, and but, perhaps, a single knife at table, which serves not the
purposes of eating, but is used for scraping vegetables and preparing their
food; a spoon, and a liberal use of nature's own flesh-forks, constitute all
their table cutlery.  The plantain is never out of the houses of either rich or
poor.  They eat it fried, roasted, boiled, and raw; and it is their great
staple, though not to be compared with those on the Magdalena.  Chicha is in
general use.  This is peculiarly the drink of the poor, although I have seen even
foreigners use it.  It is kept in huge earthen jars, wrapped round with green
hide (Pg. 152--ed.)  to preserve them; it sells for about four or six cents a
quart.  A large tituma (calabash) is filled, which is passed round from one to
another throughout even a large company!

Pg. 152:  From eight to nine he breakfasts on arracacha soup, or rice well
greased; fried eggs, seasoned with garlic; boiled potatoes, bread, and a dish of
fried beef, which is cut into small strips, without a particle of fat,
seasoned well with cumin-seed and garlic, and so over-done that the juices of the
meat are entirely dried up; this they eat with a spoon.  These people are also
fond of a dish called bollo; it looks like an apple-dumpling, and is made with
pieces of pork, (Pg. 153--ed.) and seasoned like the dried beef, and well
smothered in hog's-lard, all enclosed in a thick paste and boiled.  The coffee and
chocolate are not drank with their meat, but immediately afterward, and then
the same small cup is made use of as in the morning.

Pg. 154:  ...a shirt of the same material, and over all a short ruana of the
coarsest cotton or woolen cloth, sometimes parti-coloured and sometimes plain
drab.  This national coat is from one and a half to two and a half yards
square, with an aperture left in the centre just of sufficient width to admit the
head.
(OED has 1942 for "ruana"--ed.)

Pg. 156:  Another class, called the "cachacao," or dandies, have cast aside
the national ruana except when they ride,...

Pg, 168:  The civil arm is the only check upon the grossness and presumption
of the indolent hive; and  government is certainly commendable for the
promptitude and tact with which they have, within a few years, clipped the wings of
these gallinazas (a Bogota nickname for friars, meaning turkey-buzzards).

Pg. 234:  La Mesa and Chuachi are the two places in "tierra caliente" mostly
resorted to by invalids, or by those who wish to spend a month or so away from
the city during the prevalence of the blustering, chilling gales, termed here
"paramos."


(NOTES ON COLOMBIA (1827) and TRAVELS IN SOUTH AMERICA (1825) tomorrow.  I
got parking tickets to do--ed.)