Ḥumayḍeh has a leaf with red veins and a red back. It is used less commonly than the others.
Dhanbat faras (tail of a mare) looks like young onion leaves.
Ḥasak is used more especially for cows, and ḥalîbet es-sukûl is fed to the kids when milk is scarce. It yields, when broken, a thick milky juice. The fruit of the cactus or prickly-pear is yellow, seedy and sweetish. For some reason or other the name for this plant, in Arabic, and the word for patience are the same, ṣubr. This cactus fruit is much esteemed. A story is told of a man with a prodigious appetite for it who was going along by the hedges of prickly-pear near Ludd and followed by some cows which ate up the peelings of the fruit as he dropped them. The story says that the cows had to stop eating the peelings before the man’s appetite for the fruit had been fully gratified. This is only a sample of the many stories told about great eaters.
The carob-pod is chewed.[[94]] It has a flavor like that of sweetened chocolate. Green carob-pods may be cooked in a toothsome way with milk.
A receipt for making “Turkish Delight.” The first essential is a perfectly clean cooking dish, as the secret of good Turkish Delight is to prevent burning or sticking. One-half pound of corn-starch, three pounds of sugar and ten cups of water are to be used. The corn-starch is to be dissolved in two cups of water and strained. The remaining eight cups of water, hot, and the sugar are to be made into a syrup. When the syrup is almost at the boiling point, clear with the white of an egg, skim off, add the juice of a half lemon and strain through a cloth. Pour the corn-starch solution into the hot syrup, stirring continually, and allowing the mixture to boil until very thick, an hour if necessary, stirring all the time to prevent sticking to the bottom. This constant stirring during the cooking is very important. Blanched almonds and the flavoring (generally mistkâ gum) are put in just before taking the dish from the fire. The whole is then poured into a large shallow tin into which fine sugar has been sifted. When the paste has cooled it may be scored and cut.
There is almost no drinking of alcoholic liquors among the peasantry. On the feast-days the convents offer ‛araḳ, a native grape brandy, to callers. The increasing influence of foreigners tends to an increase of drinking customs in the cities and the extension of such habits into the country villages. This influence comes through the foreign ecclesiastics in the convents, monasteries and patriarchates, business and travel, and sometimes the example of missionaries. Among Moslems the habit of using ardent liquors is supposed not to exist, but an aged official of wide experience told me that he knew of two hundred fifty Moslems in Jerusalem who were hard drinkers, and that the Turkish officials as a class were taking up the custom rapidly. Said a poor Moslem girl in Hebron despairingly of her brother, who had taken up with the drinking habit, “Why, my brother drinks like a Christian!” Of an inveterate and shameless toper the Arabs say that “he would drink from his shoe.”
The custom among the country people is to eat out of a common dish.[[95]] If it contains rice the food is rolled into balls and put into the mouth with the fingers. The bread is held on the knee, as one sits in squatting posture, and bits are torn from it. With these bits of bread the food may be dipped up, especially if it be oil or leben. Portions of meat are taken with the fingers. A wooden spoon is sometimes used. When guests are eating, the women of the family are not present, but often eat in another place and use the remains of the men’s feast. In the field the workers gather around the dish that has been brought from the village. They may be sitting in the broiling sun. It is customary to invite the passer-by to the repast.
The first meal of the day is not usually taken until the middle of the forenoon, and is a light one. The second one, at or after noon, may be heartier. The evening meal is the best. Meat is almost a luxury, the increase in its use denoting progress in prosperity.
Almost any discriminating person will decide for the native peasant costume as more modest, graceful and artistic than the European styles. One feels disappointed and defrauded at sight of a villager togged in European trouserings. The village woman descends in the scale of attractiveness just so far as she submits to the fashion of Western dressmaking. Stockings are seldom worn by the country people when they are in vigorous health. At best the stocking is an unsanitary snare. Men generally wear the roomy shoe having buffalo rawhide from India for the soles and a red or brown goat-skin for the uppers. Women seldom wear shoes inside the village for fear of ridicule. When they are out in the rough places they wear the same kind of shoe as the men.
The fully dressed fellâḥ, (peasant) has in his outfit the following articles: