If the Arab has eaten a midday meal he will probably sleep for an hour after, and then continue doing what he has to. About six-thirty comes the dinner, and this meal is important. There is always the highly spiced soup with pieces of meat floating about, usually another dish of meat and vegetables, and always the kous-kous, with more meat. They drink water or milk, for even those who are in the habit of taking wine and spirits rarely do so in their own houses if Europeans are not there. After dinner they drink their mint tea or coffee, and friends come in to see them, or they go out themselves and sit in the shops or cafés and drink more tea, and talk and laugh until it is time to go to bed.
Their meals are eaten on the floor. They keep a kind of narrow mattress on which they sit, and the dishes are placed on a small table about a foot high known as a maïda. A common napkin some eight feet long is placed on their knees all round the circle. All the food, except the soup and sometimes the kous-kous, is eaten with the hand, and before the meal and after, soap and warm water are carried round and every person washes his hands and face. It is said that these ablutions bring prosperity. There are usually no glasses, and a common mug is handed round from which sips are taken.
Of course, when receiving guests of note, or Europeans, the meal is much more sumptuous, and among the Europeanized chiefs there is a gaudy dining-room kept for the friends from over the seas. Crockery of all kinds is produced, knives and forks, a jumble of wines and a general atmosphere of inconsequent confusion. But the meal is excellent, though sometimes a trifle long.
This is an average menu for a short dinner:
- Chorba. Soup with vermicelli, highly spiced.
- Bourak. Mutton minced with mint and sage, rolled up in a light pastry—this is a kind of sausage roll.
- Leham Lalou. A kind of mutton stew in a dark sauce, cooked with prunes and sweet almonds. The words mean sweetmeat.
- Mechoui. The lamb roasted and served whole. Even to Europeans no knives or forks are issued, and it must be torn to pieces with the hands.
- Kous-kous. Looks like semolina and is made of hard wheat kneaded into tiny round balls and steamed. With it is served a kind of vegetable soup called marga, a highly spiced sauce, and often mutton or chicken. There are countless varieties of kous-kous varying according to localities.
- Heloua. Sweets and cakes made of flour and honey and almond paste and orange water.
There are many other alternative dishes; game often appears, but as a general rule the chorba, the mechoui, and the kous-kous are de rigueur for the set dinner. In the place of the sheep there may occasionally appear a gazelle, and if an Arab wants to show his deepest respect for you he will serve a baby camel roasted whole. But this is very rare.
Generally speaking, therefore, the Arab’s life is very simple and peaceful. He is courteous and hospitable, a rather lazy country gentleman, not very intelligent, but wiser and more philosophical than many Europeans on problems of daily life. Men who lay tremendous stress on points of honor, and who rarely forgive an injustice or an insult, disliking any sort of encroachment by non-Mohammedans, they have drifted into inertia behind the precepts of the Koran.
“What Allah has destined will occur, so why worry?”
CHAPTER XI
ARAB WOMEN
Having now cast a cursory glance over the life of the Arab man, let us look into the inner life of the homestead—that is to say, the life of the women, of the children, and of the servants. Placing them in the same category does not in the least suggest that the Arab woman is in any way a slave. Far from it. This is quite a fallacy, which must be added to the list of legends to be dispelled in this book.