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Many of us remember learning that the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn, by burying fish to fertilize it, and planting seeds over the fish. We were also taught that this was a big part of why those first settlers were able to make it through their early winters. It’s likely when the first 40 families landed on Founders Landing in Southold, not much corn was being grown on the North Fork at that time, but it was readily available through trade with New England. The local Indians kept large stores of this traded corn.
So the North Fork settlers more than likely came with the knowledge of how to grow corn, but the local Indians are said to have shown them a way to process it, creating a more palatable corn product: samp.
In olden times, Samp was often pounded in a primitive and picturesque Indian mortar made of a hollowed block of wood or a stump of a tree, which had been cut off about three feet from the ground. The pestle was a heavy block of wood shaped like the inside of the mortar and fitted with a handle attached to one side. This block was fastened to the top of a young and slender tree, a growing sapling, which was bent over and thus gave a sort of spring that pulled the pestle up after being pounded down on the corn. This was called a sweep and mortar mill. As samp is a dried food, it can be stored indefinitely, providing a staple winter food for early residents. Samp cooked alone is called samp. It is called samp porridge when it is cooked as a main dish with meat and vegetable. Early colonists would keep a stew of samp cooking for several days on the fire since refrigeration wasn’t an option, and the heat would keep any meat in the stew from spoiling. In time, the samp porridge would develop a crust around the pot that would taste like popped corn. This crust would be broken off and given to children as a treat.
For the purpose of this article I cooked a samp porridge. My family’s custom was to have ham on New Year’s day, which meant there was always a hambone in the dead of winter to use for samp. I didn’t have a ham bone, so I used what was on hand, a ham steak. On this cold November night, my recipe for Samp Porridge looked like this:
• 1 cup of dried samp (soaked overnight)
• 1 large sweet potato
• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 medium turnip
• 2 Rutabagas
• 1 onion
• 5 medium carrots
• 1 large parsnip
• 2 Knorrs ham bullion cubes
• Ground pepper to taste
• fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon Bell seasoning
• 2 ham steaks
• 8 cups of water
Dice onions and sautee in the bottom of a soup pan until translucent or caramelized. Cut up all root vegetables. (although I cut mine smaller, most people cut them up the size they would for stew.) Add water, root vegetable and all other ingredients to pan. Simmer for at least an hour. Broth will become thick and glossy, as if you had added cornstarch.