The
process of manufacture is not pleasant--the flour is made into a paste,
and then flattened and consolidated by being thrown backwards and
forwards from one hand to the other, though one may avoid seeing this,
it is difficult to escape hearing the pit-pat of the soft dough as it
passes rapidly between the Khitmutgars extended, and I fear not always
clean fingers, it is then toasted, brought in hot, and you may eat it
dirt and all. But travellers must not be too particular, and so long as
your food is wholesome, eat and be thankful. But here comes my dinner,
with the chepatties I have just seen prepared, and which sight suggested
the foregoing lines. Chicken for breakfast, chicken for dinner, chicken
yesterday, chicken to-morrow, _toujours_ chicken, sometimes curried,
sometimes roasted, torn asunder and made into soup, stew or cutlets, or
with extended wing forming the elegant spatchcock, it is still chicken;
the greatest and rarest change being that it is occasionally rather
tender. I have had chicken soup and roast fowl for dinner, the chicken
in the soup as stringy as hemp, the fowl as tough as my sandal, and with
so large a liver that I doubted whether the bird had not met with a
violent death. I like fowl's liver, it is my one _bonne bouche_ during
the day, but these startled me, and after straining my teeth on the
carcase, I gladly swallow the soft mouthful.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48