The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-10-31
Cuisine and Table Manners Of the Moors.

The cooking one meets with in q
Moorish house is very peculiar, and, |
may say, also, very indigestible. They
have three different ways of cooking
everything by frying, baking in earthen
pots and steaming, together with, in
the case of soup, boiling. The meals
served being usually three in number,
consisting of light breakfast in the
morning, at which is served hot milk,
coffee and bread and butter. The hot
milk IS quite nice, it being sweetened
and having boiled in it an herb which
gives to it a flavor very like cinnamon,
which |, at first, thought it was. The
coffee is like all Turkish, sweetened
when boiling, the berry being ground
very fine, you getting, in consequence,
many of the grounds. My host always
favored his with a little dash of orange
flower water. The bread was bet
ter than is usually met with in
Morocco, the flour from which it
was made being ground and sifted in
his own mill. The butter was on my
account, fresh, the MOors liking theirs
as rancid as possible, burying it in the
ground in stone jars, and leaving it to
season as long as four years. Some of
1t Is made of sheep or goat milk, and
Is very white, having a not unpleasant
flavor. Lunch was about the same as
dinner, only the courses fewer. For
dinner soup was served as the first
course, and was ordinarily very nice;
steamed dish of meat, usually NUT
ton, then followed, or sort of stew,
| the whole swimming in butter, very
rich and indigestible; fish next, fried
IN cooking; this was Shad of the very
| finest description, more excellent and
| larger than those in our country, their
size, fairness and flavor being incredi-
bic to believe. Chicken baked in but
ter came neXt, finally sweets and cot
fee; the sweets not being very nice
| too crude, as is all the rest of their GU
linary art. Wine, of course there was
none, the water we had being favored
with orange flower blossoms, and
: which we drank from the com
mon bowl. Knives and forks we
: had, also spoons, soup plates,
meat plates and napkins, mine
host having learned the art of using
them in his travels. Such awkward
and unnecessary implements as knives
and forks to eat with the Moor despises
He dips the soup from the common
bowl by means of little wooden ladlt
having a rounded-bottom cup, and il
it carrying the soup to his mouth, OIL
when eating, rolling up his flowing
sleeve, he dips his left hand into thu
mess of meat, selecting apiece, putting
in on plate, and by means of tina
hand alone. breaks it up into piece
and carries it to his mouth, the RICH
hand never being used. Between
courses he holds this hand CAREFUL,
away from everything, first having
licked it all over, in the most approve,
canine fashion, and at the end of tn
meal large brass basin is passe,
around, while slave from brass ket
| tie pours over the hand, held over tn
basin, hot water, which is dried off b.
means of a towel. Ihave spoken of tn
tea, and the way they drink it. tn
noise made by Q roomful OF men drink
inc being almost deaiening, those c
| powerful lungs sucking up a cup of te
in one pull From this it can b
seen that the table manners of tn
, Moors are not exactly such as we ar
accustomed to meet with amongst tn
first families, - either in Europe or 4
home. Cor. Cincinnati COmn2CrClG
| Gazette