The holy meal was made of very coarsely ground wheat, a
sort of grits, salted and toasted. It was prepared by the Vestals
according to immemorial custom. They were supplied with
a sufficient quantity of heads of wheat, the best of the produce
of two of their estates, one near Caere, the other near
Lanuvium. These wheat ears were packed in baskets and
stored on the farms in dry, airy barns. There they were
kept drying and hardening their grains until the next spring.
Then the allotted baskets were brought into Rome. On the
seventh of May, after a ceremonial of prayer, the three elder
Vestals began going over these wheat-ears, sorting out those
entirely perfect, and placing them in larger baskets shaped
like the big earthen jars in which the Romans commonly
tored wheat, olives, oil, wine and other similar supplies.
On the next day the wheat from the first day's selection
of ears was separated from the straw, beards and chaff,
was roasted and coarsely ground. The resultant groats
were then put away in great earthen jars in the outer
storeroom of the temple. On the third day they again
selected wheat ears, on the fourth they again prepared
wheat-grits, arid so on alternately for eight days. By the
evening of the eighth day they had stored enough groats
to make the sacred meal for one year's ceremonies of the
entire Roman ritual.

The salt with which they salted the holy meal was prepared
with similar invariable formality. Crude salt, obtained from
evaporated sea-water out of the sand-pits on the seashore
near Lavinium, was conveyed to the Atrium in small two-handled