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Kabab is meat roasted or fried with spices; sometimes in small pieces, sometimes minced, sometimes on skewers, but never in joints as with us, though they make kababs of a whole lamb or kid. It is used in a collective sense, like the term kisa, or "purse," among the Persians and Turks; only the kisa consists of five hundred dollars, a sum very nearly equal to 1000 rupis.
About mid-day the Memon or Rangari has his chief meal consisting of leavened or unleavened bread, meat curry or stew or two "kababs" or fried fish, followed perhaps by mangoes, when in season; and when this is over he indulges in a siesta whenever his business allows of it.
These trays contained meat-pilafs, swimming in melted butter; vine leaves filled with chopped mutton; kababs, or bits of roast meat spitted on wooden splinters; crisp cucumbers; a kind of tasteless bread; a dish that looked like vermicelli sweetened with honey; thin jelly, and sweetmeats that tasted strongly of rosewater.
It came out of dark alleyways on tawny camels loaded with pots; on pattering asses half buried under nets of cut clover; in the exquisitely modelled hands of little children scurrying home from the cookshop with the evening meal, chin pressed against the platter's edge and eyes round with responsibility above the pile; in the broken lights from jutting rooms overhead, where the women lie, chin between palms, looking out of windows not a foot from the floor; in every glimpse into every courtyard, where the men smoke by the tank; in the heaps of rubbish and rotten bricks that flanked newly painted houses, waiting to be built, some day, into houses once more; in the slap and slide or the heelless red-and-yellow slippers all around, and, above all, in the mixed delicious smells of frying butter, Mohammedan bread, kababs, leather, cooking-smoke, assafetida, peppers, and turmeric.
The roadway in the centre, thirty feet wide, is well paved with stone, and perfectly level. Every thirty yards or so are stalls for the sale of kababs, fruit, sweetmeats, and the kalyan, for a whiff from which passers-by pay a small sum. Ispahán is noted for its fruit; apricots, peaches, nectarines, cherries, mulberries, and particularly fine melons, are abundant in their season.
In native fashion I first bought a big flap of bread from an old woman, and then went to a pickle booth to get some beets, which I wrapped in my bread. Next I proceeded to a meat-shop and ordered some lamb kababs roasted. The meat is cut in pellets, spitted on rods six or eight inches long, and lain over the glowing charcoal embers. In the shop there are long tables with benches beside them.
Although it was past eight o'clock when we made a start, the prince, his suite, soldiers, and grooms were none of them stirring, although his chef was busily engaged, with his staff of assistants, preparing a sumptuous breakfast of kababs, roast meat and poultry, pastry, and confectionery of various kinds.
The customer spreads his former purchases, and when his kababs are ready he eats his dinner. He next proceeds to a coffee-house, where he has a couple of glasses of tea and three or four diminutive cups of coffee to top off, and the meal is finished. The Arab eats sparingly as a rule, but when he gives or attends a banquet he stuffs himself to his utmost capacity.
On seeing him, the khwaja exclaimed, "O, my child! leaving this old man by himself, where wast thou gone?" They perceived a shady garden close to the gate of the city on the sea shore; they pitched their tents and alighted there. The khwaja and the young merchant sat down together, and began to eat their kababs, and drink their wine.
I had in the morning sharbat, and various kinds of sweetmeats for my breakfast; in the afternoon, fresh and dried fruits for my luncheon; and at dinner and supper she having procured for me pulaos, kababs, and bread of the most exquisite flavour and delicious cookery; she saw me eat them in her own presence; and in every manner she took care of me.
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