ROYAL PERSIAN SHERBET.
Under this sounding title, most of us have a remembrance of a white effervescing powder, flavoured with essence of lemons, which in the summer-time was sold to us as children; a large spoonful was stirred into a tumbler of water, cool or the reverse, and known to boys as a ‘fizzer.’ It is not to this mawkish draught we wish to draw the reader’s attention, but rather to the real thing as used in Persia and throughout the East. Persian sherbet is a very comprehensive term, and there are many varieties of it. Before we come to what it is, it may be as well to explain when and how it is drunk. Sherbet is used as a thirst-quencher, and a cooling drink in hot weather; it is either the drink taken at meals, or it is handed to visitors in warm weather in lieu of coffee. As a drink at meals, it is placed in Chinese porcelain bowls, there being usually several varieties of the sherbet, more or less, according to the size of the party and the position of the host. Each bowl stands in its saucer; and across the vessel is laid one of the pear-wood spoons of Abadeh, famed for their carving and lightness throughout the Eastern world.
A sherbet spoon is from one to two feet in length; the bowl, cut from a solid block, holds from a claret-glass to a tumbler of the liquid. This bowl is so thin as to be semi-transparent, and is frequently ornamented with an inscription, the letters of which are in high-relief. To retain their semi-transparency, each letter is undercut, so that, although standing up an eighth of an inch from the surface of the bowl, yet the whole is of the same light and delicate texture, no part thicker than another. One-half of the surface of the spoon-bowl is covered by two cleverly applied pieces of carved wood, which appear to be carved from one block. But this is not the case—they are really cemented there. These pieces are carved in such a delicate manner as to be almost filmy in appearance, resembling fine lacework. The handle of the spoon—at times twenty inches long—is formed in a separate piece, and inserted into the edge of the bowl in a groove cut to receive it. This handle is also elaborately carved in delicate tracery; and a wonderful effect is produced by the rhomboid-shaped handle, at times four inches broad at the widest part, and only a tenth of an inch thick. The groove where the handle is inserted into the edge of the bowl of the spoon, and the point of junction, are hidden by a rosette of carved wood, circular in shape, only a tenth of an inch thick. This, too, is carved in lacelike work, and it is cemented to the shaft of the spoon. A kind of flying buttress of similar delicate woodwork unites the back-part of the shaft to the shoulder of the bowl. The spoon, which when it leaves the carver’s bench is white, is varnished with Kaman oil, which acts as a waterproof and preservative, and dyes the whole of a fine gamboge yellow similar to our boxwood. The weight of the spoon is in the largest sizes two ounces.
The tools used by the carver are a plane, a rough sort of gouge, and a common penknife. Each spoon is of a separate and original design, no two being alike, save when ordered in pairs or sets. The price of the finest specimens is from five to fifteen shillings each. These sherbet spoons are really works of art, and are valued by oriental amateurs. Many of the merchants are very proud of their sherbet spoons; and being wood, they are ‘lawful;’ for a metal spoon, if of silver, is an abomination; consequently, the teaspoons in Persia have a filigree hole in the bowl, and thus can be used for stirring the tea only, and not for the unlawful act of conveying it to the mouth in a silver spoon. Of course, these high-art sherbet spoons are only seen at the houses of the better classes, a coarser wooden spoon being used by the lower classes. The spoons at dinner serve as drinking-vessels, for tumblers are unknown; and the metal drinking-cups so much in use are merely for travelling, or the pottle-deep potations of the irreligious.
During the seven months of Persian summer, it is usual to serve sherbet at all visits, in lieu of coffee, for coffee is supposed to be heating in the hot afternoons, at which time formal visits are often made; and as the visitor must be given something—for he is never sent empty away—sherbet in glass tankards or istakans—a word borrowed from the Russian term for a tumbler—is handed round. These istakans are often very handsome, being always of cut or coloured glass, often elaborately gilded and painted in colours, or what is termed jewelled—that is, ornamented with an imitation of gems.
And now, what is Persian sherbet? A draught of sweetened water flavoured to the taste of the drinker. The only exception to this definition is the sherbet-i-kand, or eau sucrée, which is simply water in which lump-sugar has been dissolved. The varieties of sherbet may be divided into those made from the fresh juice of fruit, which are mixed with water and sweetened to the taste; and those made from sirup, in which the juice of fruit has been boiled.
It will be thus seen that the effervescing qualities of royal Persian sherbet only exist in the imagination of the English confectioner. But there is one all-important point that the English vendor would do well to imitate: Persian sherbet is served very cool, or iced. Blocks of snow or lumps of ice are always dissolved in the sherbet drunk in Persia, unless the water has been previously artificially cooled. Fresh sherbets are usually lemon, orange, or pomegranate; and the first two are particularly delicious. The fresh juice is expressed in the room in the presence of the guest, passed through a small silver strainer, to remove the pips, portions of pulp, &c.; lumps of sugar are then placed in the istakan; water is poured in till the vessel is two-thirds full, and it is then filled to the brim with blocks of ice or snow.
The preserved sherbets are generally contained in small decanters of coloured Bohemian glass similar to the istakans in style. They are in the form of clear and concentrated sirup. This sirup is poured into the bowl or istakan, as the case may be; water is added; the whole is stirred; and the requisite quantity of ice or snow completes the sherbet.
When bowls are used—as they invariably are by the rich at meals, and by the poor at all times—the spoons are dipped into the bowl, and after being emptied into the mouth, are replaced in the bowl of sherbet. Thus the use of glass vessels, until lately very expensive in Persia, is dispensed with. Probably with the continuous introduction of the ugly and cheap, but strong and serviceable, Russian glass, the dainty sherbet-spoon of Abadeh will gradually disappear, the more prosaic tumbler taking its place.
One kind of sherbet is not a fruit-sirup, but a distilled water; this is the sherbet i-beed-mishk, or willow-flower sherbet. The fresh flowers of a particular kind of willow are distilled with water; a rather insipid but grateful distilled water is the result. Of this, the Persians are immoderately fond, and they ascribe great power to it in the ‘fattening of the thin.’ It is a popular and harmless drink, and is drunk in the early morning, not iced, but simply sweetened.
Persians are very particular as to the water they drink, and are as great connoisseurs in it as some Englishmen are curious in wines. The water they habitually drink must be cool, and if possible, from a spring of good repute. It is often brought long distances in skins daily from the favourite spring of the locality. Given good water, and pleasant, grateful beverages of all sorts, it is easy to refrain from the strong drinks which Mohammed so wisely forbade his followers to indulge in, making drunkenness a crime, and the drunkard an object of disgust and loathing to his fellow-man. Undoubtedly, strong drinks in hot climates, or even in hot weather, are incompatible with good health.
The varieties of the preserved sirups are numerous: orange, lemon, quince, cranberry—the raspberry is unknown in Persia—cherry, pomegranate, apricot, plum, and grape juice; while various combinations of a very grateful nature are made by mixing two or even three of the above.