Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/97
LIFE AMONG THE ARABS
Even to Europeans no knives or forks are issued, and it must be torn to pieces with the hands.
Kous-kous. Looks like semolina and is made of hard wheat kneaded into tiny round balls and steamed. With it is served a kind of vegetable soup called marga, a highly spiced sauce, and often mutton or chicken. There are countless varieties of kous-kous varying according to localities.
Heloua. Sweets and cakes made of flour and honey and almond paste and orange water.
There are many other alternative dishes; game often appears, but as a general rule the chorba, the mechoui, and the kous-kous are de rigueur for the set dinner. In the place of the sheep there may occasionally appear a gazelle, and if an Arab wants to show his deepest respect for you he will serve a baby camel roasted whole. But this is very rare.
Generally speaking, therefore, the Arab’s life is very simple and peaceful. He is courteous and hospitable, a rather lazy country gentleman, not very intelligent, but wiser and more philosophical than many Europeans on problems of daily life. Men who lay tremendous stress on points of honor, and who rarely forgive an injustice or an insult, disliking any sort of encroachment by non Mohammedans, they have drifted into inertia behind the precepts of the Koran.
‘‘What Allah has destined will occur, so why worry?’’
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