Dishpan

“ Then all the men, squatting round their private family fires in the big house, help themselves from their hot-pot and eat to the limit of its contents. An Indian will not take a bite at his food; he tears whatever he is eating into small pieces with his fingers. Among the Issa-Japura tribes, as with the Tukana, men and women do not eat together, and the children feed with the women. None of the tribes have any special observances or purifications before or after eating, so far as I am aware, nor are there any general restrictions, except so far as carrion and the intestines are concerned. ”

“ You must know, the girls who go to the proposeress leave with her a list of what they have—so many samovars, so much linen and household stuff. It is not often they have silver spoons. These lists the patriarchs come to her house and read. A sly fellow, like Old Dan, will steal to her door at dusk, when no one is about, and putting down his flask of whisky on the table, ask the old crone to drink. 'Come, motherkin,' he will giggle, 'bring out your list, and let us talk it over.' 'What are you seeking, Father Daniel?' leers the crone. 'A wife for Vanka, motherkin, a wife! ”

“ Among the Indians, there are certain people who never eat two out of the same dish or even at the same table, on account of some religious opinion. When these come to Siraf, and are invited by our considerable merchants, were there a hundred of them more or less, they must each have a separate dish, without the least communication with the rest. Their kings and principal persons have fresh tables made for them every day, with little dishes and plates wove of the cocoa nut leaf, out of which they eat their victuals. ”

“ The water is boiled, and the man whose rice boils first is declared to be the winner of the dispute. The loser has to recoup the winner all his expenses. It sometimes happens that both pots boil at the same time; then a coin is to be picked out of a pot containing boiling oil.”
At one of the religious ceremonies of the Koravas, offerings of boiled rice (pongal) are made to the deity, [35] Polēramma, by fasting women. The manner in which the boiling food bubbles over from the cooking-pot is eagerly watched, and accepted as an omen for good or evil. ”

“ Each mahullah seems to have its own style of work for the women, to which it adheres more or less.
In one house where I visit, a basin of delicious “lebban” is always set before me. We all sit on the floor round a diminutive table about five inches high, and each one being provided with a wooden spoon dips out the lebban from the central dish. This lebban makes a delicious food in the hot weather. It is made something after the same manner as “junket,” only lebban is more tart and acid. Eaten with grated cucumbers, it makes a very refreshing salad. ”

“ There are some still amongst us who looked with complacency at the cruelties once perpetrated in this Christian country in the name of justice. We see our own manners at earlier stages of our growth reflected in those of contemporary savages.
602 Pilaw, a dish which has now spread over the Eastern world, had its origin in Central Asia. It is a stew composed of hot mutton-fat into which meat has been shredded, carrots and rice, and, cooked as only a Turkoman knows how to prepare it, is a dish fit for a royal table. ”

“ The presiding divinity of the kitchen abruptly terminated her vocal exertions in favour of ghee and betook to her heels, carrying off in the precipitancy of her flight the entire ghee-pot, a bare moiety of which had just formed her demands. The flitting figures with the lit lamps disappeared in tumultuous flight, little caring that the tinkling of the ornaments in their feet betrayed the very presence they endeavoured to conceal. ”

“ If I must die, sir, I shall die with the satisfaction of not having lost your esteem after I have merited it. I beseech your majesty therefore to keep me no longer impatient to display the certainty of my art.'
Then the king commanded the officer who had the custody of the princess to introduce Prince Camaralzaman into her apartment: but before he would let him go, he reminded him once more that he was at liberty to renounce his design; yet the prince paid no heed, but, with astonishing resolution and eagerness, followed the officer. ”

“ As soon as the prince came into the king's presence, he bowed and kissed the ground. The king, who, of all that had hitherto presumptuously exposed their lives on this occasion, had not seen one worthy to cast his eyes upon, felt real compassion for Prince Camaralzaman on account of the danger he was about to undergo. But as he thought him more deserving than ordinary, he showed him more honour, and made him come and sit by him. 'Young man,' said he, 'I can hardly believe that you, at this age, can have acquired experience enough to dare attempt the cure of my daughter. I wish you may succeed ”

“ Yet the poor Hindu, with but a bit of cloth about his middle, and an earthen dish of rice and curry for his frugal meal, is as contented, and perhaps far more comfortable than the officer who dines within the palace, fanned by punkahs, waited on by a train of obsequious servants, and stimulated to excess by wines, liquors, and tempting dishes. The one is living an artificial life in a strange and hostile climate ”

“ Morran's attention was distracted by Dickson, who suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. "Man, ye're as white as a dish-clout," she exclaimed with compunction. "Ye're fair wore out, and ye'll have had nae meat sin' your breakfast. See, and I'll get ye a cup o' tea." ”

“ I am seeing many countries, and many ways and preparations of food; but none of them approaches the admirable cooking of our various dishes of Bengal, and it is not too much to say that one should like to take rebirth for the sake of again enjoying their excellence. It is a great pity that one does not appreciate the value of teeth when one has them! Why should we imitate the West as regards food—and how many can afford to do so? The food which is suitable in our part of the country is pure Bengali food, cheap, wholesome, and nourishing, like that of the people of Eastern Bengal. ”

“ They ate up the king's ministers and servants. They ate up gradually all the people of the city, all my father's horses and elephants, and all the cattle of the city. You must have noticed, as you came to the palace, that there are no human beings, no cattle, no living thing in this city. They have all been eaten up by those three Rakshasis. They have spared me alone—and that, I suppose, only for a time. When the Rakshasis saw you and your friends from a distance, they were very glad, as they mean to eat you all up after a short time. ”

“ When an outsider is admitted to the caste the rite is usually connected with food. A man who is to be admitted to the Dahāit caste must clean his house, break his earthen cooking-vessels and buy new ones, and give a feast to the caste-fellows in his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. ”

“ My third day's march took me over a region of low hills into the plain of Nishapur, so celebrated in Persia, and I may add in all Asia. Djolghe-i Nishabur (Plain of Nishapur) is in the eyes of the Persian the ne plus ultra of beauty and wealth. For him the air there is purer and more fragrant than elsewhere; its water the sweetest in the world, and its products without rivals in creation. It is difficult adequately to describe the proud joy which is pictured in his countenance as he points out the hills lying towards the north-east, abounding in turquoise mines and precious metals. ”

“ These uplands are among the most attractive parts of Asia Minor; the bracing air is filled with the delicious scent of pine-woods, the verdant pastures are well watered by numerous clear streams, and the meadows ripen under a glowing sun, the rays of which are tempered by the altitude. Here, too, are numerous monuments of the Phrygian kingdom; while north-east from these, at Doghanlu Daresi, on one of many minor tributaries of the Sangarius, and south-west at Bey-Keui, at one of the sources of the same river, near the summit of the watershed, there have been found traces of Hittite handiwork. ”

“ Hildreth asked Luchman how he came to be so fortunate in his search for food. He replied that India was a rich country, and he was not forced to any extreme measure to get what he brought. He found a native's hut at no great distance, where he obtained all that was needed. The lota was a part of the native's property, and his wife had just baked the cakes for the evening meal. ”

“ No footprints along the trail can spell out for us his majestic mien, his stolid dignity, his triumphant courage, his inscrutable self-poise, and all of these dyed with a blood-red struggle for survival such as crowns no other page of American history.
To gain this close measure of the Indian mind, his friendship and confidence must not suffer eclipse. It is a superlative task, for the inner Indian shrine is crossed by only a favoured few. The Indian is averse to being photographed, for he feels that every picture made of himself by so much shortens his life. ”

“ Felicia, at any rate, had never repented of her choice; she was greatly in love with her husband, and had the pleasant consciousness that his taste—fastidious, critical, and not a little sarcastic—found in her nothing that was not absolute perfection. India had developed in her a self-reliance and fortitude which never could have been born in the safe tranquillity of her home. The hot winds of Dustypore had not quite robbed her cheeks of their English bloom ”

“ When this happens, all the food on the dish becomes jūtha or leavings of food, and as a general rule no caste except the sweepers will eat these leavings of food of another caste or of another person of their own. Only a wife, whose meal follows her husband’s, will eat his leavings. As a servant, the Dhīmar is very familiar with his master ”

“ Hence the feast is called the Pongal, which in Tamil means boiled rice. This feast is also called the Uttarayana feast, as the sun commences his journey towards the North on this day. Sankranti or Sankramana, which is the Aryan name for the Pongal, means the entrance of the sun into the sign Capricorn.
The Pongal is observed as a day for the special worship of the sun throughout India by the Hindus. Everything sweet is supposed to please the sun-god. So rice with sugar and milk is cooked on this day in every Hindu household. ”

“ But my best friends at Surat are the Irish Presbyterian missionaries, Dixon, Wallace, Montgomery, Taylor—alas, they no longer are! William Dixon, my own revered master, died quite a young man. You could see at first sight that he was a scholar and a martyr. He effected much good at Surat; and though death too soon cut short a career of brilliant promise, his influence is felt even now to be at work.
William Wallace was our Bible teacher—a man of great benevolence and learning. I have never seen a man so gentle in spirit and so unruffled under provocation. ”

“ At the north-eastern angle of that frontier, the Dihang river, the connecting link between the Tsanpo of Tibet and the Brahmaputra of Assam, bursts through the main axis of the range. At the opposite or north-western angle, the Indus in like manner pierces the Himalayas, and turns southwards on its course through the Punjab. This wild region is in many parts impenetrable to man, and nowhere yields a passage for a modern army. Ancient and well-known trade routes exist, by means of which merchandise from the Punjab finds its way over heights of 18,000 ft. ”

“ There, as he pondered, he saw the smoke arising tall and straight over small houses in the plain and the fields where the sheep fed. Later the sun rose shining over Alatta as it shone over Istahn, and there arose a stir about the houses both in Alatta and Istahn, and cocks crowed in the city and men went out into the fields among the bleating sheep; and the King wondered if men did otherwise in Istahn. And men and women met as they went out to work and the sound of laughter arose from streets and fields ”

“ They were, however, traced by manifest supernatural signs up through the valley of the Ganges to the snow tops of the Himālaya, in which they no doubt left their mortal coils.' They seem to feel a singular attachment for the birthplace of their great progenitrix, for no place in the world is, I suppose, more infested by them than Delhi, at present; and there a dish of rice without a fly would, in the iron, be as rare a thing as a dish with one in the golden, age. ”

“ The river of Nishapur is formed by numerous small streams, which descend from the mountains that on three sides inclose that city. Its water is at times wholly consumed in the cultivation of the plain; but the natural course may be traced, running in a southerly and south-westerly direction, until it debouches from the hills in the vicinity of Tersheez. The Miyanabad stream is believed to be a tributary of the Gurghan. It rises from several sources in the transverse range joining the Alatagh to the Jaghetai, the streams from which all flow westward in narrow valleys, uniting about long. ”

“ On the properties of plants and on the culinary art.The chapter on medicine is not taken from any learned Sanskrit medical work. The indigenous plants and herbs of rural Bengal are prescribed as remedies, the effects of which seem to be infallible on the human system and were known by direct experiment. The discourse on the culinary art of Bengal in Dãker vachan has a particular interest to us, as it describes the simple but exceedingly delicious fare, cooked by our village women. ”