a manner as may secure to her the
reputation of hospitality.

The kitchen and offices to the zeenahnah, I have remarked, occupy one side
of the quadrangle; they face the great or centre hall appropriated to the
assembly. These kitchens, however, are sufficiently distant to prevent any
great annoyance from the smoke;--I say smoke, because chimneys have not
yet been introduced into the kitchens of the Natives. The fire-places are
all on the ground, something resembling stoves, each admitting one
saucepan, the Asiastic style of cooking requiring no other contrivance.
Roast or boiled joints are never seen at the dinner of a Native: a leg of
mutton or sirloin of beef would place the hostess under all sorts of
difficulties, where knives and forks are not understood to be amongst the
useful appendages of a meal. The variety of their dishes are countless,
but stews and curries are the chief; all the others are mere varieties.
The only thing in the shape of roast meats, are small lean cutlets bruised,
seasoned and cemented with pounded poppy-seed, several being fastened
together on skewers: they are grilled or roasted over a charcoal fire
spread on the ground, and then called keebaab,[15] which word implies,
roast meat.

The kitchen of a zeenahnah would be inadequate to the business of cooking
for a large assembly; the most choice dishes only (for the highly favoured
guests), are cooked by the servants of the establishment. The needed
abundance required on entertaining a large party is provided by a regular
bazaar cook, several of whom establish themselves in Native cities, or
wherever there is a Mussulmaun population. Orders being previously given,
the morning and evening dinners are punctually forwarded at the appointed
hours in covered trays, each tray having portions of the several good
things ordered, so that there is no confusion in serving out the feast on
its arrival at the mansion. The food thus prepared by the bazaar cook
(naunbye,[16] he is called), is plain boiled-rice, sweet-rice, kheer[17]
(rice-milk), mautungun[18] (rice sweetened with the addition of preserved
fruits, raisins, &c., coloured with saffron), sallons[19] (curries) of
many varieties, some cooked with vegetables, others with unripe fruits
with or without meat; pillaus of many sorts, keebaabs, preserves, pickles,
chatnees, and many other things too tedious to admit of detail.

The bread in general use amongst Natives is chiefly unleavened; nothing in