The Citizens Delight In Speaking Of
Dates As An Irishman Does Of Potatoes, With A Manner Of Familiar
Fondness:
They eat them for medicine as well as for food; "Rutab," or
wet dates, being held to be the most saving, as it is doubtless the
most savoury, of remedies.
The fruit is prepared in a great variety of
ways: the favourite dish is a broil with clarified butter, extremely
distasteful to the European palate. The date is also left upon the tree
to dry, and then called "Balah": this is eaten at dessert as the
"Nukliyat"-the quatre mendiants of Persia. Amongst peculiar
preparations must be mentioned the "Kulladat al-Sham[FN#8]" (necklace
of Sham). The unripe fruit is dipped in boiling water to preserve its
gamboge colour, strung upon a thick thread and hung out in the air to
dry. These strings are worn all over Al-Hijaz as necklaces by children,
who seldom fail to munch the ornament when not in fear of slappings;
and they are sent as presents to distant countries.
[p.403]January and February are the time for the masculation[FN#9] of
the palm. The "Nakhwali," as he is called, opens the female flower, and
having inserted the inverted male blossom, binds them together: this
operation is performed, as in Egypt, upon each cluster.[FN#10] The
fruit is ripe about the middle of May, and the gathering of it, forms
the Arabs' "vendemmia." The people make merry the more readily because
their favourite diet is liable to a variety of accidents:
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