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Updated: June 17, 2025
As the making of this mahie depends, like brewing, upon fermentation, so, like brewing, it sometimes fails, without their being able to ascertain the cause; it is very natural, therefore, that the making it should be connected with superstitious notions and ceremonies: It generally falls to the lot of the old women, who will suffer no creature to touch any thing belonging to it, but those whom they employ as assistants, nor even to go into that part of the house where the operation is carrying on.
The mahie, which has been mentioned as a succedaneum for ripe bread-fruit, before the season for gathering a fresh crop comes on, is thus made: The fruit is gathered just before it is perfectly ripe, and being laid in heaps, is closely covered with leaves; in this state it undergoes a fermentation, and becomes disagreeably sweet: The core is then taken out entire, which is done by gently pulling the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is thrown into a hole which is dug for that purpose, generally in the houses, and neatly lined in the bottom and sides with grass; the whole is then covered with leaves, and heavy stones laid upon them: In this state it undergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for many months: It is taken out of the hole as it is wanted for use, and being made into balls, it is wrapped up in leaves and baked; after it is dressed, it will keep five or six-weeks.
It was the fissure now known as the Creux Mahie, and to which an easy access has been arranged for the benefit of the curious. Here Jean passed three months. Hilda frequently visited him, and always kept him supplied with food; she warned him also when he might safely roam on the cliffs above.
While all this has been doing, some of his attendants have been employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone-pestle upon a block of wood; by being beaten in this manner, and sprinkled from time to time with water, it is reduced to the consistence of a soft paste, and is then put into a vessel somewhat like a butcher's tray, and either made up alone, or mixed with banana or mahie, according to the taste of the master, by pouring water upon it by degrees and squeezing it often through the hand: Under this operation it acquires the consistence of a thick custard, and a large cocoa-nut shell full of it being set before him, he sips it as we should do a jelly if we had no spoon to take it from the glass: The meal is then finished by again washing his hands and his mouth.
Others from afar, as Dame Maude de Torteval, and the Lady Marie de la Mahie with those that they brought with them he sternly bade to stay in their safe haven.
Of the-bread-fruit they also make three dishes, by putting either water or the milk of the cocoa-nut to it, then beating it to a paste with a stone pestle, and afterwards mixing it with ripe plantains, bananas, or the sour paste which they call mahie.
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