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
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
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.
Piki bread bakes almost instantaneously and is peeled from the rock in sheets so thin they are translucent.
Several sheets of the bread are often rolled up loosely into flattened scrolls.
Piki takes several days to make from scratch. Piki is prepared by women in various phases of the courtship and marriage ritual, and is eaten by the couple on the morning of the marriage ceremony.
See also
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