The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1916-04-13
A SINGAPORE DISH
RicetafeI Is Not a Mere Meal; L
Is a Whole Banquet.
A SORT OF CULINARY MARVEL.

Il Contains About Everything From
Fish to Dessert, but lts Great and
Growing Delight Seems to es the
Highly odorous Bombay Duck.
On a trip around the world from New
York. Singapore is just half way. The
ships part here and low both ways.
Drop a letter in the p~ostotfice for New
York and it may come across the Pa.
ciic; drop another and it may cross the
Atlantic.
More odds and ends of humanity are
thrown together here in Singapore than
in any other city in the world. Singa-
pore is halfway between Arabia and
Japan, halfway between India aud
China. On the street they stream past
-Sikhs, Tamils, Parsees, Armenians,
Arabs, Malays. Mohammedans. Filipi-
nos, Chinese, Portuguese, Siamese,
japanese, Javanese-as If they We're
made up for a procession. some with
no clothes and some swathed in them.
Every day at ON the bill of fare
In Singapore you find a dish called rice
tafel, which will live long in my men,
DRY. 1t is the most fearfully and Won
derfully made dish in the world. 1t
staggers the imagination to think of
what it is composed. An ordinary In
tellect stands appalled, when it begins
trying to figure out what the dish is
made of. Only a Kelvin dare try to re-
solve it into it's elements.
The first day l ordered it in a reck-
less, care free moment. 1 had never
heard of it before and supposed that it
was just an ordinary single dose dish,
but in a few minutes I began to find
out that twas a tafel of another color.
An ordinary sized boy came up bear
ing a plate Of rice and gave it to me
Hardly had the boy turned aside when
another boy came up with some meat.
I piled on the meat, but just as 1 was
picking up my knife and fork a larger
boy came up bearing a plate divided
of into sections piled to the cargo line
with spices, cinnamons and other trop-
ical products. I looked to see If there
hadn't been some mistake, but his conf
dent manner and bearing showed plain
" that I was to put them on too. I
did, even though it looked as If l were
going on a cruise, and had just leaned
back to study the mound when an
other bun bearer came up. l began
on his dish and worked my way
around, helping myself to the more
prominent articles, and after he had
gone on I picked up my spoon ana
was just wondering which side to
make my first encroachments on wien
another outrider came up with another
dish Of odds and ends. After him came
others; some little and some. old, lSbpime
Thy and some bold, the line f0fmt6iihhg
It the left and rhythmhiccaW! 'Hhamiijpahhg
BY, while I threw on ana sro1nded do
until It began to look de II the m1sooauHhhd
builders had gone BACK into business
again. After the tailSo Of tile procession
had gone BY. + located i favorable
spot and went to.iwotk.., -
These are some OF the actual things
that were In the final draft::s Rice Cdr
Red meat mincemeat balls, fried on
Ions, shredded onions, white onions,
banana fritters, hard boiled eggs, Sic
ed cucumbers, Chinese macaroni, pea
nuts, French beans, Indian chttney,
c%ocoanut, red fish, shrimps, fried 'Ash,
fried chicken, goose liver, chilli lines
and Bombay duck. 80
I'll take my word for 1t that every
single n Of these destroyersf was in
my rice tafel.
put Bombay duck last, for I know
that the other ingredienS would rather
not associate with II. You could fead-
ny understand their attitude If you had
once tasted Bombay duck, for there Is
no other thing its sire In the world that
makes such an impression on you. It
has the worst odor Of anything I ever
went up against, and without wishing
to boast l have smelled some things
that were highly praised in their line,
but for hard, consistent smelling day
In and day o. Bombay duck has them
all in the Yankee division. In compar-
1son with it limburger cheese has a
delicate perfume.
How it ever got that name is more
than l know. 1t is really a dried fish,
which, broken and powdered, lends a
seasoning, but as for myself 1 would
rather take my seasoning in some other
form. Old residents and missionaries
who have been in the country a long
time say that after a time q person
comes to be very fond of it, but per-
sonally l know that there could never
be anything between us-unless it was
distance. 1t is all that l can do to stay
at the table where one of the parties is
an old resident or a missionary a long
time in the service.
The people in Singapore do not call
r1cetafel Il dish. They consider it a
meal. And that's what it is. It looks
as If it had been meant for the noon
day repast at a Woodmen log rolling.
Many and many a person here has
r1cetafel at noon and nothing else. In
TACT, after eating a ricetafel there isn't
room for anything else. A person then
wants tO crawl OFF on1 ro +o .1oo,