1918. 
©L>1 
Cooking in Syria. 
Deputy Consul Whiting at Jerusalem 
gives through the “Daily Consular and 
Trade liaports” an interesting account 
of cooking in Syria. He says that in the 
Jerusalem consular district the inhabi¬ 
tants are divided into three distinct 
classes : First, the “Bedouin,” or nomad ; 
second, the “fellah,” or farmer,; and, 
third, the “medany,” or city people. The 
Bedouin is constantly on the move with 
his tent home of goats’ hair, and therefore 
carries no stove at all. Two or three 
stones serve to raise the copper pot, in 
which all meals are prepared, from the 
ground, and beneath the pot any wood, 
brush, or thistles Which are at hand serve 
as fuel, and in the absence of these dried 
camel’s dung is made use of. Their 
bread is quickly baked in thin slieet-like 
loaves on the upper surface of a circular 
convex utensil of thin sheet iron placed 
over a smoldering fire with the convex 
side uppermost. 
The “fellah” home, as a rule, is built 
with one room, which serves for all pur¬ 
poses. On one side a fireplace is built 
into the wall similar to the American old- 
style fireplaces, and in this, built of stone 
plastered with clay, is a tripod arrange¬ 
ment to hold the handmade clay cooking 
pot which is most generally in vogue 
among this class. Brushwood and this¬ 
tles are the most common fuel. This 
fireplace is used only in Winter, a some¬ 
what similar one cut in the court, gen¬ 
erally under shelter, serving as a Summer 
stove. 
Their bread is baked in a “taboon.” 
This is a low dome about 30 inches in 
diameter, made of unbaked clay mixed 
with stubble without a bottom, resting on 
the ground, and with an opening in the 
top. It is placed in a small hut upon 
three or four small stones which raise it 
a couple of inches from the ground. The 
exterior of this dome is banked up with 
hot ashes which are kept continually 
smoldering, the fuel used being dry ma¬ 
nure. Inside the dome the floor is strewn 
about four inches deep with pebbles. In 
baking, the woman brings a wooden 
bowl of rather thin dough to the “ta¬ 
boon” and takes a small piece of the 
dough which, being dexterously flung 
from one hand t*> the other, is thus 
spread into a loaf some 10 inches in di¬ 
ameter and three-quarters of an inch 
thick. This is thrown into the oven 
through the opening in the top onto the 
hot pebbles. When the “taboon” floor 
is quite covered with these loaves, a clay 
cover is placed on the opening, and in a 
few minutes the brown loaves, full of 
indentations made by the pebbles, are 
taken out thoroughly baked. 
The -city people formerly used char¬ 
coal entirely for cooking purposes. This 
fuel was used in a small portable stove 
called “tabakh,” made of unbaked clay 
mixed with fine straw. These are made 
in shape like an ordinary flowerpot. 
Halfway up inside is a partition of the 
same muterial, full of holes, wliieh allows 
the ashes to drop in*o the bottom sec¬ 
tion that is provided with a small open¬ 
ing or door which admits the air from 
below for the draft as well as affording 
an opening for removing the ashes. On 
the outside of the “tabakh” are two small 
ledge handles to enable the cook to move 
it about readily. Similar ones somewhat 
different in shape are made of sheet iron 
and are extensively used. The largest of 
these “tabakhs” are not over 12 inches 
in diameter and capable of holding and 
heating only one copper “tnngera” or pot 
at a time. Still, a city woman will serve 
quite a sumptuous dinner of many dishes 
cooked ou four or five of these little 
stoves. 
A woman of this class never stands to 
work il she can help it. Her kitchen is 
not provided with a chimney, so she 
starts a fire in the stoves and places them 
in the open court of the house until the 
lire is well started and the charcoal has 
ceased giving out poisonous fumes, when 
she moves them into the kitchen, places 
iiiem on the floor in a half circle around 
her, and either sitting on her heels or on 
a low block or stool, or cross-legged on a 
cushion, prepares the meal. A round 
hoard some 20 inches in diameter and 
inised from the ground a few inches 
serves as a kitchen table. 
The bread is homemade, but baked in 
public ovens. The domes of these public 
ovens are built of a species of soft fire- 
pioot limestone, with a floor of neatly 
matched blocks of a harder kind of lime- 
stone. The fire is made of scrub-oak 
roots, olive wood, or thistles, and is kept 
burning at one side while the remainder 
of the floor is utilized for small loaves of 
bread and trays of savory dishes. The 
baker lights up the oven, to note the 
progress of baking, by throwing in from 
time to time a small handful of crushed 
olive seeds, which are the residue after 
making the olive oil. 
While in the larger cities the natives 
have, to a marked extent, copied foreign 
methods in many ways, and while Euro¬ 
pean families use wood aud coal ranges, 
the native women have continued, until 
only a few years back, the use of the 
primitive charcoal stove. In the last 10 
years the small petroleum stoves, which 
generate the gas they consume by an air 
pump forcing the oil through a pipe 
which is continuously heated by the flame 
thus produced, have become almost as 
common as their primitive predecessors. 
This change has come about, not by the 
desire or felt need of a better article 
(the old style is still generally preferred), 
but has been prompted by economic con¬ 
siderations. The scarcity caused by con¬ 
stantly uprooting the scrub oak has so 
raised the price of charcoal, and the con¬ 
stant competition for trade has, on the 
other hand, so lessened the price of kero¬ 
sene oil, that the latter is fast becoming 
the fuel of Palestine. This is especially 
true since American oil has been intro¬ 
duced into the market here. 
Glimpses of Colorado. 
Two of our neighbors were in to call 
not long ago, and in course of conversa¬ 
tion one asked the other. “What do you 
get to eat for your big family?” “Soup,” 
was the answer. 
“Soup? What kind of soup?” 
“Oh, all kinds—potato, bean and once 
in a while we get a soupbone in town 
and that helps out a lot. I tell you with 
a family of eight children beside three 
grown folks, it is sometimes a problem 
to get enough to feed them. The children 
like the soup and sop bread in it; saves 
the butter, but takes lots of bread. A 
sack of 48 pounds of flour .hardly lasts 
us two weeks, generally three a month. 
We get the cheaper grade of flour.” 
These people came here a few years 
ago, bought a relinquishment with no 
improvements on it They have a com¬ 
fortable house of five rooms, the three 
upstairs are not finished, however. It 
is built of the rock found here in many 
places. They have three boys old enough 
now to look out for themselves. In the 
first years here they saw hard times, but 
are getting now where it is uot so hard. 
“It is easy to find enough to eat if oue 
has the money,” khe remarked later. “I 
get tired of the same thing sometimes 
aud want a change, but if you can’t you 
can’t.” 
We spent part of a day last week 
with some neighbors two miles from us. 
They own 125 acres of land in northern 
Missouri; came to Colorado for the wife’s 
health three years ago, took a homestead 
30 miles from town. They proved up 
last year aud rented a farm here, being 
about seven miles from town now. The 
health of the wife greatly improved, and 
she does not want to go hack to Mis¬ 
souri, but is very much displeased with 
renting. One finds people here from “all 
over.” Their manners and speech are 
so different one can tell very soon where 
and how they have lived. The dinner 
we had was abundant, hut cooked and 
served differently ; all must look out for 
themselves—no order about anything. At 
another place where we called it was 
more “our way.” The people were from 
Illinois and later from Iowa. As soon 
as one entered the house we felt the 
air of culture and refinement to a greater 
degree than any other people we had 
met. They were no more kind-hearted 
than some others, but we enjoyed their 
society much more. 
In their district is one of the prettiest 
and neatest schoolhouses and yards I ever 
saw anywhere. A large yard is fenced. 
Around the four sides are trees, and 
here and there shrubs; several furrows 
were plowed and little ditches the length 
of the tree rows for irrigating. There 
is a fine well, windmill and eemeut plat¬ 
form and steps, coal house, etc. The 
school house is quite large with tower 
aud bell, screens the length of the long 
windows, all painted white. The trees, 
being kept well watered, are quite large. 
NKW-YORKEH 
and it looks so inviting and cool. In 
this district they are fixing up a barn for 
those who have to ride to school to put 
their horses in; also a well and wind¬ 
mill, fence around the yard, and will set 
out trees another Spring. The number 
of pupils is not large, only 14 last year, 
but will be more this, as a family have 
come into the district who have several 
children to send. Only six months 
school, however. This county has a 
high school in town to which all can go 
free. In the district south of us they 
hope to get a man teacher, one who can 
teach ninth and tenth grades. One of 
our neighbors who seems quite an in¬ 
telligent man told us he never went to 
school; picked up what he knew. He 
can read, write a fair hand and does all 
his problems in his kead. He is a 
shrewd buyer and seller. They came 
from Missouri for health’s sake. They 
have plenty of means, bnt live in very 
poor quarters; have an abundance to 
eat, are very hospitable and kind neigh¬ 
bors. 
This season has been the driest ever 
known here, or that we ever saw; but 
for the Winter’s snow and Sirring moist¬ 
ure there would have been nothing; but 
the people seem to live on as if there 
were plenty in sight. The pastor of the 
little church at the railroad siding lost 
one of his horses by snake-bite, it was 
thought. The people got up a social, 
served ice cream and cake and cleared 
over $12. Probably half of the people 
who went were not as well off as the 
pastor, but they do not stop to count 
the cost, or lay by for the Winter’s coal. 
The social part is all right, but one can 
have no social meetings unless it touches 
the pocketbook, and where there is very 
little in it and no way to get more, it is 
a problem to solve. There will be many 
who will have hard work to get even 
soup. The cow and the hen cannot help 
unless they are fed, and they are the 
standby for the Plains people. It is the 
poor homsteaders who come without 
much means who will see hard times 
this Winter. They are allowed to leave 
five months of the year, and many will 
do so if they have the money to get 
“back home.” No matter from what 
State they come it is always “back 
home,” even if they like it well here. 
The words mean more to some than tc 
others. A woman who has lived here 28 
years went to Eastern Nebraska last 
Fall, taking her oldest child, who was 
born here and never out of the State. 
The wonders of woods, nuts to pick, little 
streams with fish. Blue grass pastures 
and “worlds of fruit” were something the 
boy could hardly believe true, they were 
so beautiful. If that boy could only 
go farther East, to New York State and 
see what Nature does in her kindest 
moods! I pity the children who never 
went “wintergreening” and do not even 
know of such a plant; who never went 
to the woods in Springtime for leeks, 
crinkle-root, pepipergrass and wild 
flowers; who never saw spearmint and 
peppermint grow by the side of pebbly 
brooks, or watched for “miunies” to catch 
in their dinner pails on the way home 
from school! They know nothing of 
the early apples, Harvest Sweets, Sour 
and Sweet Boughs, the little red squirrels 
that steal the nuts, the sly little rascals, 
yet so pretty and cute one does not scold 
them. Not 1 ong ago a school picnic was 
held here. Everybody who went took oil 
stoves to make coffee and warm meat, 
potatoes, etc. Boards were placed across 
the benches for a table aud all had a 
good time, although it was hot. The 
children were wild with joy in having 
a picnic. What would children think of 
it East? No trees, no brooks, just the 
bare dried parched Buffalo grass. But 1 
these little ones are happy, for they do 
not know of anything better and it is 
home to them. The dugout. sod house 
or shack is all the same to them. “Be it 
ever so humble there is no place like 
home.” airs. Frederick c. Johnson. 
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-con¬ 
trol, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign 
Power. 
Yet not for Power (Power of herself 
Would come xmcall’d for) but to live by 
law, 
Acting the law we live by without fear; 
And, because right is right, to follow 
right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of conse¬ 
quence. —Tennyson. 
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