FOOD. 7 



women of the servants' families can do it. It con- 

 sists of half filling a wide shallow iron pan with 

 sand, and placing it over a fire till nearly red hot. 

 A couple of handfuls of the grain is then thrown 

 into the sand with a peculiar turn of the wrist which 

 scatters it over the hot surface, about which it is 

 stirred for a few seconds with an iron spoon or small 

 shovel pierced with holes like a fish-ladle. The 

 grain is partially baked, swells up and becomes 

 brittle, the husk cracking, when it is scraped up and 

 lifted out with the ladle, the sand being riddled 

 through back into the pan. A good parcher will 

 turn out a "maund" (80 lbs.)in a wonderfully short 

 space of time, the whole process being gone through 

 with a dexterity only acquired by long practice. In 

 India barley usually runs very light, there being a 

 great deal of husk. Boiled barley is a most useful 

 diet for a sick horse. It requires well boiling for at 

 least half an hour, and the water then drained off. 

 I have known horses drink this barley-water when 

 they won't look at anything else. 



Bran (choicer). 



In most of the large stations in India there are 

 flour-mills in which wheat is ground with the latest 

 machinery, and when obtained from them, bran 



