The tuna as food for man Author:David Griffiths Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Aguascalientes these are almost invariably chavenas which have been put in storage. They are spread in thin layers, alternating with layers of straw or old hay i... more »n a dry, airy place. Handled in this way they will keep from October or November to the 1st of May. MACHINERY USED IN MAKING TUNA PRODUCTS. It is scarcely necessary to state that all of the appliances used in the manufacture of tuna products are of the most primitive nature, simple and crude but often exhibiting at great deal of skill and ingenuity in the use of inexpensive materials at hand which might not be recognized as at all suitable by people accustomed to the use of machinery. It must be remembered that the processes described here are essentially those of the primitive peoples of the Republic of Mexico. They are processes which have been followed in all essential particulars since Cortez first landed, and how long before no one knows. It is said that the same processes are in vogue to-day as then, with but slight modifications. It is a common practice for a suitable number of people to establish a camp in the prickly pear thickets late in the season for the purpose of manufacturing queso and the other products. A factory and a few rude huts are quickly thrown up, giving shelter to the workers as well as to the manufactured products. We have seen factories consisting of a small adobe building of one room about 25 feet long by 15 feet wide, thatched with the leaves of the yucca (PI. V, fig. 1). They usually contain one or two kettles, generally of copper, although pottery is sometimes used, one or two troughs hewn out of willow, three or four earthenware tubs, and smaller earthenware vessels in which the liquids and plastic materials are handled. The kettles are set in the ground up to their handles, on a s...« less