The lentil,[[87]] ‛adas, is considered by the native peasant a very nourishing food. The little seeds are reddish or brown and are shaped like tiny eyestones. When made into soup the taste is similar to that of dried peas. For the winter supply they are sifted, washed and given a treatment with olive-oil to prevent the attack of a little fly called sûs, which eats out the inside of the seeds, leaving only the shells.
Rice is consumed in large quantities, but, as it is an imported food, it is bought as needed. A sack weighing two hundred twenty-five pounds may sometimes be bought for five dollars. A brand called Japanese rice, harder and cleaner, supposed to swell better and absorb less semen in cooking, costs considerably more. In the markets one often sees rice which has been colored with a red powder. Pine-nuts from the cones of the ṣnôber-pine, which are very toothsome, are often cooked with rice.
The olive fruit as it comes from the tree is exceedingly puckery in flavor. For early eating the people put the berries into a strong brine, cracking them somewhat with stones to hasten the curing process. For late use the cracking of the berries is dispensed with and they are simply set away in the salt water. It takes several months to extract all the bitter taste of the whole berries and render them pleasant in flavor. The peasant much prefers ripe olives to green ones for eating. Most people who learn to eat ripe olives share in this preference for them. Usually the ripe olive is black, though some varieties are not so. They are very nourishing and full of oil, while green olives are a mere relish. Olive-oil is used very commonly as a food. The purest grade may be purchased as low as the rate of six cents a pound when bought by the jar. It is usually measured out in a heavy copper vessel shaped like a water jar of the zarawîyeh type, holding seven ruṭls, or about forty-four pounds, of oil. These copper jars are always very bright in color, as the action of olive-oil on copper is sufficient to keep it perfectly clean from corrosion. Those who make olive-oil have large cemented cisterns in which to store it, and as the cisterns are not cleaned very often, and the different grades are put in promiscuously, the flavor becomes disagreeable to the European palate, though the peasants do not mind if it acquires even a sting in taste. This defect in flavor is increased when the heaps of berries are left too long before pressing them. They become heated and more or less rancid, and acquire the sting which we think so unpleasant. But if one is painstaking, one will learn where and how to secure some of the first-grade oil which comes from the early berries and direct from the press. This early oil is often so delicate as scarcely to have any distinctive flavor. It is of a light greenish color.
Much of the inferior grades of oil is made into a soap very soft to the touch. The Mount Carmel soap is especially well liked. A great deal of soap is made in Nâblus.
As has been suggested, the grape is the choicest fruit of the country. With bread and grapes many hundreds are daily content. The native people do not wait until August, when the first ripe grapes are to be had, but enjoy eating green grapes, ḥiṣrim, with salt. Grape molasses, dibs, and grape marmalade and jam, ṭoṭleh, are prepared for winter by the more prosperous households.
Figs are next in general favor and are dried in large quantities for winter use.[[88]] Some are strung on strings, but most of them are pressed in bins. The black variety is preferred, as it is somewhat richer than the white and green kinds. Figs make a hearty food. Nothing more delicious in the line of fruit can be found than large, fresh figs with the morning dew yet on them. Fresh, ripe figs are often brought into the village in the little home-made, wheat-straw baskets, covered with the strong-smelling marâmîyeh leaves. The very early fruit that precedes the regular crop by two months is called dâfûr and is esteemed a luxury. A cooked dish of dried figs flavored with anise is called khubayṣeh.
This list of the most common staples for the peasants’ use would not be complete without coffee, which, while it might appear more in the light of a luxury, is yet so essential in a respectable household as to be classed here with the necessities. It must be on hand for guests, whether afforded for daily use or not, and wherever men meet for business or ceremony coffee is expected. It is purchased in the raw berry at about eleven cents a pound for a good grade, and the preparation of it becomes a matter of personal accomplishment. Men often carry some coffee berries in their pockets for use at gatherings with their friends. In drinking coffee, one cup is frequently passed about among a company of men, being replenished for another drinker when one has had some. The beverage is drawn into the mouth with a noisy sip that both cools it, if hot, and testifies to the drinker’s satisfaction with the quality. When done properly the business of coffee-making includes roasting on an iron spoon, pulverizing in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle, and boiling in a tiny copper or tin pot from which it is poured into a handleless coffee-cup, finjân, of about the size of an egg.
To continue the list of foods. Tomatoes, though comparatively new to the country, have become a favorite vegetable. Tomatoes are a summer crop, and acres of them may be seen. A cooked tomato sauce is boiled down and then evaporated in the sun until of considerable density, when it is set away as a winter seasoning for soups, stews and rice. Sliced tomatoes are dried in the sun for preservation. The fresh tomato is enjoyed in salads. The price per pound is something less than one cent.
The seed pods of okra or gumbo, or, as the peasants call it, bâmyeh, are strung on twine and dried for the winter stores. It is cultivated in the plains near Ludd.
