The natives of the Moluccas prepare the meal in different ways, chiefly, however, as a hard bread, which, if kept dry, may be preserved as long as ships' biscuits, and is called sago lemping. The meal, after having been dried for two or three days, is sifted until it becomes tolerably fine, but remains somewhat adhesive. It is then formed into small flat cakes, which, to the number of seven or eight, are placed in a mould of red earth, and baked to the proper degree.
The sago bornek or borne, the granular sago, is dried for a shorter period, then sifted and shaken by two men in a piece of cloth until it granulates. It is then smeared with fresh cocoanut oil, and heated. in an iron pan (tatyn) until it attains a certain degree of hardness, after which it is placed in the sun to dry.
For sago tetu-pala, the meal is aired until it becomes red, when it is sifted and stuffed into an entire fresh bamboo, which is placed in different rows above a fire until it bursts and the sago is roasted. Sago thus prepared may be preserved a long thine if kept dry.
For the sago buksona, the meal is mixed with grated santang kalapa, sagar, and a little pepper and salt, enveloped in young sago leaves, and boiled in water.
To make the sago bagea or kwee bagea, the meal, after being dried in the air to redness, is sifted, mixed with fresh kanari kernels, and then baked in young sago lea.ves. Sago haruwa are small sago cakes of different forms. The sago sinale is the meal baked to a ca,ke in_a pot. The sago uha is the meal enveloped in fresh sago leaves and baked on the fire. Sago kalapa, like the lempiug, is baked in moulds and mingled with much grated santang kalapa; the outside is smeared with gula areng, and it is eaten warm. Sago kalapit is even preferred by Europeans to bread at breakfast, and ranked as a dainty. Papeda, sago Wm. or pap, is prepared in the eame way as arrowroot.
ln Amboyna, the native inode of preparing sago was taught to the Amboynese by Itumphius. Be fore his time, the Amboynese, like tho natives at this day at yarions places on Ceram and Burn, and also elsewhere,as on the west coast of Sumatra, used the sago mixed with the ela. The recollec tion of Itumphitis ainongst tho Amboyneso was long continued, accompanied by a true recognition of the value of this most necessary mode of pre paring an article of food which nature has so bountifully bestowed.
The Papua oven for sago flour is made of earthen ware. It is generally nine inches square, and about four deep ; it is divided into two equal parts by a partition parallel to its sides. Each of those parts is subdivided into eight or nine, about an inch broad ; so the whole contains two rows of cells, about eight or nine in a row. When the cell is broad, the sago cake is not likely to be well baked ; the best sized cell is such as would contain an ordinary octavo volume upon its edge. When they are of such a size, the cakes will be properly baked, in the follovring manner :—The oven is supposed to have at its bottom a round handle, by which the baker turns the cells downward upo» the fire. When sufficiently heated, it is turned with the mouths of the cells up, and then rests upon the handle (which is now become the bottom) as on a stand. 1Vhen the oven is heating, the baker is supposed to have prepared his flour, by breaking the lumps small, moistening it with water if too dry, and passing it once or twice through a sieve, at the same time rejecting any parts that look black or smell sonr. This done, he fills the cells with the flour, lays a bit of clean leaf over, and with his finger presses the flour down into the cell, then covers all up with leaves, and puts a stone or piece of wood at top, to keep in the heat. In about ten or twelve minutes this will be suffi ciently baked, according to their thickness ; and bread thus baked will keep several years; kept for twelve months, vermin did not affect it. It may not be amiss to mix a little salt with the flour.
Sago bread, fresh from the oven, eats just like hot rolls. If the baker hit his titne, the cakes will be nicely browned on each side. If the heat be too great, the corners of the cakes will melt into a jelly, which, when kept, becomes hard and horny, and if eaten fresh, proves insipid. When properly baked, it is in a kind of middle-state, between raw and jellied. A sago cake, when hard, requires to be soaked in water before it can be eaten ; it then softens and swells into a curd, like biscuit soaked; but if eaten without soaking (unless fresh from the oven), it feels like sand in the mouth.