The herald., 1896-01-26
HER ,LADTSHVP

/ he natives use great quantities OF TINS
sugar, intelligently preferring it to the
refined article, the best of which is
quite tlavorless in comparison. Dis
solved in water, used so profusely that
a thick syrup is produced, they drink
it as a common beverage. Many other
''iarabes" (syrups) they have. favored
with fruit juices, but none so popular
as this plain solution of cane sugar.
The sugar cane in it's various FORMS
raw, made into sugar or converted into
rum fills large place in their dietary.
Great piles of the canes are sold in the
markets as food and sugar-cane is
served out as rations to soldiers and
rated as among the necessary stores
for sailors i'll the little trading vcs-
sells plying all along the coast. The
raw rum made. from it is even more
potent than ''moonShine' Whiskey or
Jersey apple jack" If its price were
proportioned to its strength it would
cost a dollar a drink, instead of two
and half cents. But some of it-par-
ticularly that distilled at CarupanO-
when allowed to become old, is a heVer-
age the discriminating prefer to nee
tar. But the new cane spirits rectitied.
dosed with "Cognac essence" and col
ored with caramel" bottled with
French labels and called brandy" is
more popular with the self-styled aris-
tocratic class than the purest, oldest
and most delicious Carupano rum.
They know it is 'falsiled" liquor, but
its assumed name qualities it for rec
ognition among the shams they ostenta-
tiously cultivate. TO drink honest rum
is vulgar, but brandy" is a gentle
mans" tipple.
The ideal standard of excellence in a
North American butchers mind seems
to be the ability to palm off upon a
customer fourteen ounces of bone with
two ounces of meat, and housekeepers
have been heard to declare they
'wished cattle grew without bones"
They would not be likely to repeat that
desire if they could once view the
stock of a meat stall in q Venezuelan
market. Here The bones are taken out
of the meat before it is exposed for
sale, and while there is nothing par
ticularly repulsiye in the looks of an
individual boned roast of beef or shoul-
der of veal, the sight of a mass of
chunks, slabs and strips of raw flesh
devoid of any form suggestive of spe-
cific portions of the animal economy is
far from appetiZing. One who has seen
how cattle are killed for the market
here naturally imagines that the
butchers bone the meat because they
are able to fancy, while engaged in the
work, that the flesh is alive and endur-
ing the most exquisite tortures from
their operations; but the butchers
themselves say they do it because the
meat does not spoil so quickly when
the bones are taken out. The price Of
meat is not high, for though its supply
is small the demand for it is smaller
yet. Even price at which it would be
profitable to slaughter and sell the cat
tie Of other people would still be pro-
hibitive for the peon or laboring class,
who seldom taste fresh meat, except a
very little bit on q saints day or dur
ing revolution. Only the foreigners
and the well-to-do habitually eat it,
and they are not numerous.
Venezuelans cherish the hallucination
that kid is edible, even a delicacy, and
it figures rather prominently on the
butchers stalls. Whether they don't
notice that the leathery thongs called
its meat are full of the rankest and
most offensive sleepy flavor intensi-
fed, or whether they really like that
sort of thing, is hard to determine. The
Scriptural injunction not to "see the
kid in it's mothers milk" is we'll meant,
but does not go far enough. A judicious
gastronome wouldn't want to see the
kid at all as an article of food.
Shrill-voiced boys thread their way
through the market throng shrieking
"Dulces," and carrying on their heads
1,,ox 1oI Ia,1 a1, 4e.
generally grated or shaved cocoanut,
mixed with brown sugar, a popular
confection. Clouds of flies cover the
candies and the sandy dust whrling in
the air settles thick upon them, but
neither fact initiates against their
sale.
Other peripatetic venders wheel
about barrows piled high with green
cocoanuts, in which the meat is not
yet solidified, but floats in a delicious
watery pulp. Across the pile lies a
big keen machete, or cane knife. By
one deft slash the top is sliced off
nut, converting it into a cup, full of
n pleasant and refreshing beverage,
not one drop of which has been spilled.
Price, two centavos to the foreigner;
one, to the native.
Much maize is sold, for it is the prin-
cipal bread stuff-outside the plantains
which are a sort of non-saccharine big
, bananas-but it all comes from the
United States. 1t would grow superbly
in this country, but the culture of it
would require planting, wedding, and
hoeing; and how, if he were to devote
himself to such menial toll, could the
proud Venezuelan feel, as he loves to
declare he is free as the air.
J. II. CONNOLLY.