Banquets of the nations : eighty-six dinners characteristic and typical each of its own country / compiled by Robert H. Christie.

  • Christie, Robert H.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Banquets of the nations : eighty-six dinners characteristic and typical each of its own country / compiled by Robert H. Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    food of the Burmese is “high fish’’-very high. After the salt dishes have been partaken of, fruit, pastries and sweets, generally bought from a confectioner, are eaten. As with the Hm us the gentler sex are not excluded from the dining-table, an after dinner both sexes may indulge in a smoke, chewing ot betel leaf, or areca nut slaked with lime, or have tea.. In Tibet the natives are anything but cleanly in their habits, and their culinary arrangements are exceedingly primitive. They have a strong dislike to fish except in a cured form. The mea , as a rule, begins with boiled eggs and finishes with sour curdled milk. Diners squat on the floor, and most of the dishes are placed on the table at once. Towels and a basin of warm water are supplied after the eating is done with, then the diners with- draw to another room, where they drink a cup of tea without milk or sugar, and afterwards tea made with salt and butter is handed round, and all smoke the water pipe. In Turkestan, the ceremony of cleansing, breaking of bread, and partaking of salt is always performed before sitting down to dinner. The dishes are served in courses, the first being that of fresh fruits, as the Bokharan holds, and he does so with a reasonable measure of common sense, that fresh fruits should only be taken on an empty stomach, as they are then more easily digested and help to prepare the digestive organs for the assimilation of the heavier dishes. In North China, to observe the correct rules of culinary etiquette, the courses must be served in a progression of paiis, four or sixes, leading up to a piece de resistance, and finishing with plain boiled rice in small bowls. Tea is afterwards served.