The Republican journal., 1902-12-04

flesh cannot be fit to eat, no matter
how disguised by garlic and red pepper.
You fall back on the vegetables, figura-
lively speaking, and are speedily filled
with wonder that such fine materials
can be SO spoiled in the cooking. Pota-
toes are always soggy mess. indistin-
guishable as "apples of the ground ex-
cept as their names appear on the bill i
Of fare. There are no better yams in
the world than these of Venezuela, !
especially the cream" yam; but yams,
plantains, seeds, cabbages, tomatoes
and everything else in the line of seeds,
roots and vegetables the cook can lay
hands on, are boiled together in one
pot and served in pile on hugh plat
ter, from which everybody helps him
self, poking over the mess and selecting
tid-bits with his own folk. And what
amazing pepper eaters these Venezuel-
ans are! On a small dish by each
guests plate are laid from six to nine
fresh peppers-red and yellow peppers.
not very large, but with more red-hot
fire in them than can be found any
where else outside the regular orthodox
inferno. The cut surface of one, light
ly rubbed on a plate, will be found as
effective as a liberal dash of Tobasco
sauce. Yet these brass-throated peo-
pie, especially the old fellows, will folk
them into their mouths three or four
together, deliberately chew and swal-
low them and never turn a hair nor
wink an eyelid.
A curious novelty on the dinner table
is an enormous platter piled high with
little green bundles, each tied neatly
with green string. They are called
liakis--as nearly as one can guess at the
word from its pronunciation. Each
package contains a tablespoon full of
some minced or pulped substance, wrap
ped and tied with pieces of plantain
leaf Their total constitutes sort of
lottery. You may draw successfully
from the same pile fish, flesh, fowl,
sweet stuff and plain vegetable matter,
rarely getting the same thing twice.
Apparently the cook uses all left-overs
in this manner. One wad may be
delicious; the next rank with garlic
or wickedly peppered. AS they have
been all boiled together in one huge
pot, you would suppose their flavor
would mix; but the thick plantain-
leaf prevents that.
Generally three sorts of bread appear
upon hotel tables at every meal-that
made from wheat -four, imported from
the United States, arepas, and plan
tains roasted in wood ashes, or on an
rather aristocratic sort of provinder,
but serious Venezuelans consider
either of the others more healthful.
The arepas, to the Northern taste, is
simply abominable. 1t is composed of
corn meal, Imported from the United
States, mixed with lard, another i'm
portation from the United States, and
water-"home grown" The mess is
moulded into oval balls and Indifferent
ly baked, SO that the outside is slightly
dried and the interior is exactly like
what New England housewives use to
fetten young turkeys. The laboring
class eats another and cheaper kind of
arepas, made from the nutritious cellu-
lose of some sort of roots. They are
not rolled into balls but tiattened out
into cakes half an inch thick. In
all Venezuelan cooking lard is employed
to reprehensible extent. Not only
are things cooked in lard, but lard is
cooked into things and when served it
fairly drips out of them. The hypothe-
sis does not seem unreasonable that the
| extravagant use of garlic is inspired by
a wish to overwhelm the flavor of lard.
In the course of time one accumulaJes
a good deal of both in his system; as is
painfully apparent when you chance
to be standing to the leeward of rep
resentative Venezuelan when a fresh
breeze is blowing.
FANNIE B. WARD.
Zanzibar's Young sultan.