The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-06-05


and Potatoes as Yellow as Gold
Pepper and How 1t Is Used
The Paradise of the HOusekeeper
what Servants Get"A Story
of James Gordon Bennett and n
Peruvian ButIer-HOw Our Min
sui who Has IA Farm Upon His
Roof-The Cost of Living.
DOWNRIGHT, 1885, by Frank G. Carpenter.
LIMA, Peru, May 20.-The American
minister and myself spent this morning
In the market of Lima. We met at the
market house at a. m. and ate our
dicueno at a little restaurant just off
the main aisle. Diceuno is what the
FeruVians call their first meal. 1t is
taken on rising, and consists of two
little pieces of toast and a cup of cof-
fee or tea. The real breakfast is not
taken until II or u o'clock, and dinner
does not come until 6 or In the
evening. The minister and myself are
afflicted with good American appe-
tites and we pieced out the meal with
two punches of white grapes, each of |
which was as big as your head, the
grapes themselves being as large as
damson plums. Our meal was large,
and we had hardly taken our seats
before an Indian woman with a broad
brimmed Panama hat coming well
down over her bronzed features sat
down opposite US, and ordered an zee
cream, which was served in a cham
payne glass.
Then pock-marked Peruvian of the
lower class took a seat at the table for
his chocolate, and, just as we were
about to leave, a fat old negress wear
ing a black manta or shawl which
covered the whole of the upper part
of her body, and all of her head ex-
ccpting her face, slid down into a chair
beside me. While we were eating, we
were besieged by peddlers of various
kinds, from women who offered US lot
terry tickets to men who had for sale
waXen images of the Virgin Mary
dressed in the latest modern styles. All
about us were the queer characters
which make up the lower classes of the
Peruvian capital There were cooks
by the hundreds buying their market
ing for the day. Some were Chinese.
some negroes and many were Peru
VANS with the yellow skins which
show that they are a product of the
native Indians and the Spanish. There
We're scores of women dressed all in
black, with only their faces showing
out of their black shawls. There were
many market women in calico dresses
wearing straw hats, and not a few
queer people from the mountains VINO
looked about with eyes of wonder at
their first sight of the great city. The
crowd numbered thousands, and it was
the busiest crowd 1 have ever seen in
Peru.
A LAND OF FAT THINGS.
Peru is a land of fat things. There
are really SO many wonderful products
here that l hesitate to describe them
for fear I may not be believed. What
would you think Of string beans as
long as your arm. We say lots of them
at the vegetable stands. They were
Hed up In punches and hung upon poles.
We saw potatoes as yellow as gold.
These are the papas amarillas of Peru
which are bright yellow when cooked.
We saw sweet potatoes Of many kinds
some OF which were as big as the
vans of America. Then there were
quantities of yucca, a tuber which
grows about two feet long. and which
is as big around as a base bal club. It
is not unlike the potato, but the flesh
Is more transparent, waxy and jelly
like. This is one of the chief foods of
Peru.
We saw roasting ears al nearly every
vegetable stand, and in the grain mar
EafS h9 NO 1p6 -iofi nP hit r
have never seen at home. Some of the
corn was as black as ink and another
kind was of light yellow, with grains
almost as big as a Lima hean. These
two varieties are so neatly that you
can make flour Of them by pounding
them with stone. They come from
the mountain farms, and to a great
extent form the food of that part of
Peru. We saw squashes and melons Of
all kinds Many of the vegetables l
could not understand, and the fruits
embraced those which are grown in the
tropics, as well as apples peaches and
pears. The apples were not good, how
ever and most of the peaches we saw
were of the clingstone kind. The best
fruits are the grapes, the chiremoya,
which is as big as a navel orange and
which tastes a little like ice cream;
the palta, which is eaten as a salad or
an appetizer, with vinegar, salt and
pepper, and which has a flesh not I'M
like that of stiff butter; the blue and
white figs, which grow in all the coast
villages, and bananas Of many kinds
and different varieties Of oranges,
lines and lemons. Then they have
here guavas, pomgranates tunas, the
fruit of the cactus, and olives, which
are picked in such a way that when
they come to the table they are black
and soft rather than green and solid,
like the olives we eat
QUEER PERUVIAN DISHES.
On the whole the living here is very
good. You viii not find in Washington
or New York a better meat and fish
market than that of Lima The meats
are largely sod by women, and the
women seem to have monopolized the
milk, meat and vegetable trade Of this
city The steaks and chops are very
good and you can buy a little kid or a
half-6ozen guinea pigs for trifle. The
PeruvianS are very ford of kids, and
guinea pigs are a delicacy not to be
sneered at. They taste much like young
pigeons or very tender squirrels.
They are raised and fattened for eat
ing all about here and nearly every
farmer keeps a guinea pig pen. An
ether queer dish is fish cooked by put
ting cold lemon juice On 1t. 1t is really
raw fish served with lemon juice, but
the lemon has much the same effect on
the flesh of the fish as boiling and l
have q number of times Snlacked my
lips over what / thought was the most
delicious boiled fish had ever eaten to
find that it was fish a la servi che, that
is raw fish and lemon The fish of this
coast are delicious. They are of nearly
every kind from the sole to the corbina.
which is q very large and sweet feshed
fish not unlike the blue fish of the At