t_,[7]
bits of meat roasted, etc....

"We retired into a tent to breakfast, where we found an immense bowl of
delicious fresh camels' milk, with thin hot cakes of unleavened bread,
baked upon the ashes, ready prepared for us. The principal food of the
Bedouins consists of flour and some camels' milk made into a paste,
boiled, and eaten swimming in melted grease and butter; boiled wheat
and beans dried in the sun and prepared with butter are a favourite
dish. They are all remarkably fond of butter and grease; the butter is
made in a goat-skin, suspended to the tent pole, and constantly shaken
about by the women."[8]

Burckhardt[9] says: "The provisions of my companion consisted only of
flour; besides flour, I carried some butter and dried leben (sour milk),
which would dissolve in water. It forms not only a refreshing beverage,
but is much to be recommended as a preservative of health when
travelling in summer. These are our only provisions." With regard to the
inhabitants of the Houran, Burckhardt relates that the most common
dishes of these people are _bourgoul_ and _keshk_. "In summer they
supply the place of the latter by milk, leben, and fresh butter. Of the
bourgoul I have spoken on other occasions; there are two kinds of
keshk--_keshk-hammer_ and _keshk-leben_. The first is prepared by
putting leaven into the bourgoul and pouring water over it. It is then
left until almost putrid, and afterwards spread out in the sun and
dried, after which it is pounded, and, when called for, served up mixed
with oil or butter. The keshk-leben is prepared by putting leben into
the bourgoul instead of leaven; in other respects the process is the
same. Keshk and bread are the common breakfasts. Towards sunset a plate
of bourgoul, or some Arab dish, forms the dinner."

Again, Taylor[10] says: "I received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
remarkably clean, but very refreshing."

These references particularly refer to the East, from which it would
appear that soured milk was universally known in ancient times as it is
at the present day, and this remark applies not only to Egypt,
Palestine, and Arabia, but throughout Turkey and the Balkan States,
where the consumption of soured milk is equally common. It seems curious
that the use of this commodity should have been confined for centuries
to the East, as we shall see later on that its dietetic value is so
great that it is really a wonderful thing that no one has taken the
troubl