A favorite vegetable called _kûsâ_, which looks like a cucumber and tastes like our summer squash, is often hollowed out, stuffed with meat and rice and boiled. Here is a combination of fruit, flesh and vegetable worth trying: A roll of tender grape-leaves stuffed with rice and meat and then boiled. It makes a little sausage-like affair of which a Scotch professor said that, if there were sausages in Paradise, they would be of this kind. The natives call all stuffed dishes of these sorts _maḥshy_, _stuffed_. A maḥshy made of eggplant is called _shaykh el-maḥshy_, the chief of the maḥshys. Kids, lambs and chickens also are stuffed. With some of these maḥshys, leben sauce is served and with others lemon-juice. Salads of all kinds are enjoyed by the people. _Ḥumuṣ b’ṭeḥîneh_ is made from dried chick-peas boiled, mashed with olive-oil and flavored with _ṭeḥîneh_. Ṭeḥîneh is a mixture of olive-oil, _serej_ and some sour substance, either vinegar or lemon-juice. Caraway, anise, thyme and mint are used as seasonings. The common cooking fats are semen, olive-oil and _serej_, the latter being a rich cooking oil made from simsim seeds. An out-of-door luxury is the new parched wheat,[92] called _frîḳy_, when immature heads are roasted, and _kalîyeh_, when ripe grain is roasted. The peculiar milk of a fresh goat or sheep, curdled a little, by being placed over the fire, and sweetened, is considered a dainty. Cooked sheep’s brains are a delicacy and very nourishing. ----- ----- The fruits of Palestine are many. The better known varieties are the grape, orange, lemon, apricot, plum, pomegranate, quince, citron, watermelon, cantaloup, date, mulberry and medlar. This last mentioned fruit is known by the Turkish name _akydunya_, literally, _the next world_. The cherry and peach find a congenial climate in the country. The apple and pear do not thrive so well in Palestine as in the neighborhood of Damascus. Of apricots there are several varieties. A large sweet kind, of which the seed pit has a taste similar to the almond nut, is called for that reason _lôzeh_. Another kind is called _klâby_, and yet another _mestkâwy_. Apricot leather is displayed in large sheets in the markets. From pomegranates, of which there are at least three flavors, sweet, medium and sour, and from lemons, drinks are prepared. Distilled orange-flower water is esteemed as a flavoring extract. A little of it in water is good for a sour stomach. Of nuts there are the almond, pistachio and walnut. The almond is frequently eaten green, when the kernel is in a milky state and the whole nut with its shell is tender. Chestnuts and peanuts are imported. Melon and pumpkin seeds are eaten. Sesame, or simsim, seeds are sprinkled over cakes. Partially ripened chick-peas, roasted on the stems, are very much liked. _Mulabbas_, which simply means _covered_, generally refers to sugar-coated, roasted chick-peas. These roasted peas without the sugar are called _iḳḍâmeh_, or _ḳâḍâmeh_.