“Relish it, brother! I should think so!” exclaimed Wisky. “Kwas is to a Russian what water is to a fish; rich or poor could hardly bear existence without it.”
“Not bad at all,” said I, dipping my whiskers carefully into a bowl that had been set aside by the cook.
“Mind you don’t tumble in, old fellow!” cried Whiskerandos, “and be drowned in kwas as I have heard that a duke once was drowned in wine.”
“And what may this kwas be made of?” inquired I, after another approving sip.
“I ought to know, little brother,” replied Wisky, “for many and many a time have I seen it brewed. A pailful of water is poured into an earthen jar, into which are shaken two pounds of barley-meal, half a pound of salt, and a pound and a half of honey. The whole is then placed in an oven with a moderate fire, and constantly stirred. It is left for a time to settle, and in the morning the clear liquor is poured off. In a week it is in the highest perfection.”
“I wonder that kwas is not made in England,” observed I; “but honey is not so plentiful there.”
“Sugar would make a good substitute, I should think,” said Wisky; “the beverage would not then be an expensive one. But here is our beloved Whiskerandos busy with his shtshee, the dish of all dishes in this country, that which nothing, I believe, could ever drive from the table or the heart of a Russian. When in a foreign land, it is said, it is not the remembrance of native hills or plains, or the tender delights of home, that draws tears into an exile’s eyes, but the loss of his beloved shtshee, the favourite dish of his childhood.”
“Leave a little for me!” I cried eagerly to Whiskerandos, who had nearly finished, by dint of steady perseverance, a portion which had been left in a plate. “Why,” I added, as I tasted the liquid, “this seems to me simply cabbage soup!”
“Whatever my brother may think of it,” observed Wisky, dipping his whiskers into the nearly empty plate, “he is now tasting that which forms the principal article of food of forty millions of human beings! Better live without bread than without shtshee.”
“And the ingredients?” said I, for I always delighted to pick up any scrap of information interesting to a rat.