Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/247

 magic. Scobee spent long hours in the kitchen with the jovial Zung. It was the one new friendship that he had formed in the Celestial city that meant anything to him. Zung knew the history of every spice he used in his cooking and recited many colorful tales about cinnamon, nutmegs, ginger. He told about Sumatra, Java, Ceylon, Formosa which he had visited in his study of the culinary art. He went about making a salad, a jelly or a pudding in the same manner that an artist goes about making a painting. He mixed his spices and flavors even as an artist mixes his colors. He had an apothecary's scale that measured down to grams. There were tones in flavor even as there were tones in color. To be worth while a dish must be pleasurable to see, pleasurable to smell, pleasurable to taste. In all the world Zung was the one man Scobee had met who was supremely satisfied with everything. He had no cares nor worries. He had no unfulfilled desires. All other considerations were subservient to food.

Scobee listened to his occasional songs, his