:Piki
{{Short description|Hopi cornmeal bread}}
{{Infobox prepared food
| name = Piki
| image = Piki bread at La Posada, Santa Fe.jpg
| caption = Piki Bread at a hotel restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico
| alternate_name =
| country = United States
| region = Western United States
| creator =
| course =
| type = Bread
| served =
| main_ingredient = Blue corn meal, ashes, water
| variations =
| calories =
| other =
}}
Piki is a bread made from blue corn meal used in Hopi cuisine.
Preparation
Blue corn, a staple grain of the Hopi, is first reduced to a fine powder on a metate. It is then mixed with water and burnt ashes of native bushes or juniper trees{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B_y0ekzJvwQC|title=American Indian Food|author= Linda Murray Berzok|year=2005|publisher=Greenwood Press|accessdate=2007-10-15 | isbn=978-0-313-32989-0}}{{cite book|accessdate=2007-10-15|title=Diabetes As a Disease of Civilization: The Impact of Culture Change on Indigenous People|author=Jennie Rose Joeand Robert S. Young|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Io0sdbsTK08C|year=1993|publisher=Walter de Gruyter | isbn=978-3-11-013474-2}}{{cite web | url=http://www.amberwaves.org/mediaPages/recipes/corn.html | accessdate=2007-10-15 | title=Whole Grains and Grain liroducts | author=Gale Jack and Alex Jack | publisher=Amberwaves | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817035740/http://www.amberwaves.org/mediaPages/recipes/corn.html | archive-date=2017-08-17 | url-status=dead }} for purposes of nixtamalization (nutritional modification of corn by means of lime or other alkali). The thin batter is then smeared by hand over a large flat baking stone{{cite web |title=The Testimony of Hands: Piki Stone |url=http://hands.unm.edu/98-53-345.html |publisher=University of New Mexico: The Testimony of Hands, an Online Exploration of the Archaeology Collections of the Maxwell Museum |access-date=1 April 2023}} that has been heated over a fire and coated with oil made from pounded seeds of the native American plants squash and sunflower, and also from the seeds of watermelon, which though originally from Africa, has been in the Americas for at least 500 years.{{cite book|title=Native American ethnobotany|author= Daniel E. Moerman|year=1998|publisher=Timber Press|accessdate=2007-10-15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXaQat5icHUC | isbn=978-0-88192-453-4}} Piki bread bakes almost instantaneously and is peeled from the rock in sheets so thin they are translucent.{{cite book|title=The Piki Maker: Disabled American Indians, Cultural Beliefs, and Traditional Behaviors|author=Carol Locust|publisher=Native American Research and Training Center, University of Arizona|year=1994|url=http://nartc.fcm.arizona.edu/publications/monographs/monograph13.htm|access-date=2010-03-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707103047/http://nartc.fcm.arizona.edu/publications/monographs/monograph13.htm|archive-date=2010-07-07|url-status=dead}} Several sheets of the bread are often rolled up loosely into flattened scrolls.{{cite news|work=New York Times|accessdate=2007-10-15|title= On the Mesas of the Hopis|author=Lois Essary Jacka|date=October 2, 1998|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDD143DF931A35753C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3}}
Piki takes several days to make from scratch. Piki is prepared by women in various phases of the courtship and marriage ritual. It is eaten by the couple on the morning of the marriage ceremony.{{cite book|title=Bride's Book of Etiquette| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YW7iSPg9ImUC|publisher=Conde Nast Publications |author = Sharon Watts | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-8058-9566-7}}{{cite book|title=the Hopi way|author=Robert Boissiere|year= 1985|publisher=Sunstone Press|accessdate=2007-10-15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bETh7YRsJc0C | isbn=978-0-86534-055-8}} In some Hopi pow wows it is handed out by the kachina dancers.
See also
{{portal|Food}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqdyRFFtgu8 Piki's recipe video.]
{{corn}}
Category:Native American cuisine