Vermicelli and macaroni are derived from kuscoussoo. They are both in use in Morocco. Vermicelli is simply the grains of the kuscoussoo rolled long; it is then called _spauria_. The macaroni is served as a long roll, coiled like a rope, on a large plate. It is called Fidaoush. The Spanish name for macaroni is _fidaos_, _Fideh_, the Greek φιδή. But the Moors are not ignorant of the art of making bread. On the contrary, they abound in varieties, and have particular kinds for particular seasons. The Spaniards have evidently derived from them their manner of baking, in which the dough is most severely handled, and then, but very slightly, raised or baked. Their bread is something between biscuit and bread: those who have not eaten it in Andalusia, and particularly at Seville, do not know what bread is. Fortunate are the people who possess a dish like kuscoussoo. Any comparison between them and the bread-eating nations is very difficult, for they have economy and comforts which are too subtle for calculation. The Indian has his rice and curry.[260] The inhabitants of the Eastern and Southern portions of Europe have their dishes (not bread) of Indian corn. The Turks, the Persians, the Tartars, the Arabs, have their _pilaf_, which spreads from the Adriatic to the Yellow Sea--from the Yrtish to the Indian Ocean. The domain of kuscoussoo extends from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. It does not appear to have been original amongst the Arabs, as indeed no farinaceous food could be; yet it has the unmistakable impress of antiquity. Wheat is one of those inventions or introductions which in Greece, in Egypt, in Etruria, has a date. We know of it nowhere as original. Its modern use is imagined to be restricted to the Northern and Western portions of Europe. It is, however, universal in Northern Africa, and would appear to have been original among its inhabitants; and I infer that we are indebted for it to the Holy Land. If we have borrowed from the Philistines the grain; we have neglected--just as with Indian corn and rice--to borrow the proper way of cooking it. In these other grains we cannot be brought to institute any comparison; but kuscoussoo _is_ wheat. Bread alone will not serve as a people’s diet, and is, moreover, expensive. We separate the parts of the flour which are adapted to one another--and so best fitted for food--and thus the coarse bread and the fine are equally deteriorated. By fermentation the nature of the grain is changed;[261] and by the baking, while in that state, considerable loss is incurred by the evaporation of alcohol, which our Excise laws now forbid us to collect. The difference in point of economy cannot be less than a quarter in favour of kuscoussoo; and taking it as furnishing forth the meal without the adjuncts which our labouring classes require, it will not be too much to say that, bushel for bushel, the grain is worth to them the double of what it is to us.[262]