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1634, William Wood, “Of Their Dyet, Cookery, Meale-times, and Hospitality at Their Kettles”, in Nevv Englands Prospect., London: Tho Cotes, for Iohn Bellamie, , →OCLC, page 68:
If their imperious occaſions cauſe them to travell, the beſt of their victuals for their journey is Nocake, (as they call it) which is nothing but Indian Corne parched in the hot aſhes; the aſhes being ſifted from it, it is afterwards beaten to powder, and put into a long leatherne bag, truſſed at their backe like a knapſacke; out of which they take thrice three ſpoonefulls a day, dividing it into three meales.
1760, Hutchinson, “Of the Original State of the Country, with Respect to the Inhabitants and Soil”, in The History of the Colony of Massachusets-Bay,, 2nd edition, London: M. Richardson,, →OCLC, page 465:
A ſmall pouch of parched corn, ground or rather pounded into meal, and called Nuichicke, which is well enough tranſlated Nocake, would ſupport them ſeveral days in their travelling, when they could get no other proviſions; [...]
Nookhick or nokehick, the Indian name of the meal of parched corn, was pronounced nocake, by the English, who sometimes hired Indian women to prepare it for them. Winthrop says the parched corn was "turned almost inside outward, and was white and floury." It must have resembled our parched popcorn.]
The Indians had not the art of making bread. Their boiled their corn [...] or they ate the parched kernels whole; or with a stone pestle and a wooden mortar they broke them up into meal, which, moistened with water into a paste, they called nookhik.1 [Footnote 1: Nookhik, meal, (Eliot's Indian Bible,) was corrupted by the English into nocake.]]
This preparation of corn was called nocake or nookick. [...] It was held to be the most nourishing food known, and in the smallest and most condensed form.
1920 November 1, George S. Bryan, “Good Eating in Puritan Days”, in The Mentor, volume 8, number 17 (number 213 overall), New York, N.Y.: Crowell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 35, column 1:
The Puritans raised corn (or maize) which they got from the Indians; and they soon learned the virtues of "nocake"—a name derived from the Indian of noohkik. Nocake was made of selected Indian corn, parched in hot ashes, then well sifted and thoroughly pulverized. It was mixed with cold water and drunk. The early Virginians knew it as "rockahomonie." Nocake was the rudiment with which the New England folk began the study of foods prepared from Indian corn.
[pages 5–6] In connection with the mortar and pestle, our attention is directed towards the preparation of nocake (nókek‘, corn parched and pounded) and the realization of its unsurpassed tastiness and value as a staple food. [...] [page 7] One informant confessed, of his own accord, his occasional craving for nocake, and remarked upon the individual satisfaction derived from preparing and eating it. For making nocake, Indian or "native" corn of the yellow variety is preferred.
It was some time before the white man learned the red man's secret—Nocake. Undoubtedly the first American food concentrate was Nocake. Simple to prepare, easy to carry, always dependable, it was his dependence in the forests, on the trails, even on the warpath.
1998 August, Sara Donati [pseudonym; Rosina Lippi], chapter XXXVIII, in Into the Wilderness (A Delta Book), trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Dell, published October 2008, →ISBN, page 510:
he took a mouthful of nocake to chew slowly, and she focused her energies on putting one foot in front of the other.
1999, Michael Jensen, chapter 5, in Frontiers: A Novel, trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, published May 2000, →ISBN, page 70:
He held out the bowl. "This here is some nocake. I figured we earned a quick bever." I quickly ate the ground Indian corn mixed with water.
2003, William Cronon, “Seasons of Want and Plenty”, in Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Hill and Wang, →ISBN, part II (The Ecological Transformation of Colonial New England), page 47:
Especially for men away from camp, winter was a time of occasional hunger between kills; most carried only a small store of parched corn flour called nocake as traveling fare.
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2003; “nocake, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
