The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-08-31
LIFE IN CoNsTANTlNoPLE.
Oliver Optics Opinion of Sherbet aaS
Other Oriental Luxuries.

Oliver Optics Opinion of Sherbet aad
Other Oriental Luxuries.
The boy reader has had his palate
tickled in imagination by the sherbets
and CONNECTIONS Of the Orient. l had,
and wanted to taste some of them. l
asked Dimetri about sherbet. He took
me to shop and l drank sherbet, ex-
pecting to be thrilled as with the nee
tar of the gods. What do you think it
was? Nothing but what the old ladies
of New England call raspberry shrub"
1t is very good for those who like it;
but sherbet comes down from its
seventh heaven after you have tasted
it.
At the door of the monastery ofderv-
ishes Dimetri bought me a qantity of
confections-iig paste, candy and other
things of this sort. Not one of them
was eatable; in fact the smell OF these
delicacies was more than enough. 1
threw them into the street when 1
went out, and the Moslem gamins
scrambled for them.
had some curiosity to learn how
the Turks lived. and Dimetri took me
into cafe near the mosque of st.
Sophie. The first dish was made up
from the fire before me. In a copper
saucepan, like half a globe, was q large
quantity of mutton fat, with bits of
meat in it. In another kettle of the
same kind was some rice, having a
| pinkish tint. On small template the
attendant put a portion of this rice,
spread it out, with a cavity in the mid
die. Then he emptied Il ladleful of the
mutton grease and two bits of meat
into the middle of it. The odor was
not pleasant, and a single taste of the
compound was enough for this depo-
nent. 1t smelled bad and tasted worse.
The next dish was pancakes, round
balls of dough fried in fat. They were
soaked with grease, and rancid grease
at that. Press them a little, and the
| fat flowed out in streams. These two
dishes exhausted the bill of fare. 1
resorted to fruit
An Armenian gentleman on the Bos-
| pHOl LGlIl lOlb LlO UlltiG L LOU SOliC liz
season for the best grapes of the year.
| called for some of them and up to the
present moment they were the finest,
the most delicious ever tasted. The
Turks sell them from great baskets all
over the city for next to nothing. They
look like the common Malaga grape,
but the skins were hardly perceptible.
The flavor was a little spicy, sweet,
and rich enough to be the food of di-
whites. Though my worthy Califor-
MIA companion insisted that they were
better in his State, have never tasted
any that were equal to them.
Coffee is classed as an original ORR
entail dainty, and all the boys have
read about it in their story books of the
East. We have all come to the belief
that coffee in the land of its origin is
another name for nectar. went into
a cafe in Scutari, on the Asiatic side of
the Bosphorus. Half dozen Turks
were smoking chibouks, owned by the
cafe, and leased to the smokers. The
implement is a pipe consisting of a
glass urn, filled with water through
which the smoke is drawn. The water
is bubbling all the time, and the odor
of the place is any thing but agreeable.
We called for coffee. 1t was very
small cup, no milk or sugar 1t was
half mud. Before drinking, the solid
half of the mess is stirred up, and the
beverage is soft mud. Another illusion
has "gone up" No more Turkish cof-
fee for this Yankee. Oliver Optic, in
Chicago Inter Ocean.