'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎108] (143/714)

108
PERSIA
would not give a farthing in excess. What the quality or worth of
his return gift may have been I never discovered ; because, although
he brought a bundle with him on his valedictory visit the next day,
which I afterwards heard contained an intended present of carpets
or embroidery, he failed to offer it to me, and it was said to have
been purloined by some ot his servants.
Such were the main incidents of my intercourse with the old
chief of Kuchan. I am glad to be able, if not to contradict the
Dinner versions of his character and accomplishments that have
Khan's 6 been given by my predecessors, at least to depict another
kitchen aiu | m ore favourable side of his nature. I note that ou
Sir C. MacGregor in 1875 he left the same impression of dignified
manners and considerable intelligence. In the evening I had an
opportunity both of becoming acquainted with the Persian cuisine
and of testing the quality of the Khan's own kitchen. A dinner
that would have fed a regiment was brought ready cooked from his
house to that which he was pleased to call mine, and deposited in
dishes upon the floor of the room. There were soup, chickens
cooked in no less than three different ways, leg of lamb, mutton
ragout, excellent hihohs, a Persian omelette, three gigantic platters
of rice, two of them containing the famous Persian chilau or plain
boiled rice, the third a pilau, or rice mixed with meat and currants, 1
and other dishes for which I cannot find a name. The cooking of
such as I tried was excellent, and the rice especially was prepared
in a manner that no Parisian artist could emulate. For drink
there was Kuchan wine, which I thought extremely nasty, sour
milk, which is equally distasteful to the untrained palate, and
native sherbet, which, though little else than iced sugar and water,
is a most agreeable and refreshing beverage. Delicately carved
and transparent pear-wood spoons from Abadeh floated in the
sherbet-bowl. Lastly there were piles of grapes. I more than
1 The cJiilav, which is a triumph of cooking, comes up in the form of ' a white
pyramid of steamed rice, every grain of which is dry outside, but inside is full of
juice,'and is served with a large number of entrees. For its recipe, vide Thielmann
{Journey in the Caucastts, vol. ii. p. 26), copied from Polak's Persien. As for the
pilau, Chardin declared that there were above twenty sorts, for which he gave the
recipes, made up with mutton, lamb, pullets, &c. The results of a long experience
are condensed in these words: ' It has a wonderful, sobering, filling, and nourish
ing etfect. One eats so much that one expects to expire ; but at the end of half
an hour you do not know what has become of it all; you no longer feel the
stomach loaded' (edit. Lloyd, vol. ii. p. 226; edit. Langl^s, vol. viii. p. 187).