quotes_nov22_2015.htm

…they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow-bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas.

This is from “The Cat that Walked by Himself” in Just-so Stories.

Once all the animals were wild, and the Man was wild too. He didn’t begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and cooked for them both, magically transforming wild meat and plants into delicious meals.

Then she fed him, and the house spun to her clamour. She caused fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks—anon limes for sherbets, fat quails of the pit, then chicken-livers upon a skewer, with sliced ginger between. .

This is from Kim.

Kim is exhausted. He has brought the injured Lama down from the hills, and carried the bag of priceless secret papers captured from the Russian spies, a heavy burden on mind and body. Now he is at the house of the Sahiba, who is looking after him like a mother.

…all the housewives of the village said, ‘Think you he will stay with us?’ and each did her best to cook the most savoury meal for the Bhagat. Hill-food is very simple, but with buckwheat and Indian corn, and rice and red pepper, and little fish out of the stream in the valley, and honey from the flue-like hives built in the stone walls, and dried apricots, and turmeric, and wild ginger, and bannocks of flour, a devout woman can make good things…

This is from “The Miracle of Purun Baghat” in The Second Jungle Book.

Purun Dass, the distinguished administrator of a native state, has abandoned his official life and become a a Sunnyasi—a houseless, wandering mendicant, depending on his neighbours for his daily bread. After many journeys he finds a deserted shrine above a village in the hills, and settles down there to ponder on the meaning of existence. The women of the village, hoping he will stay, are happy to fill his bowl each day.