Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/83

Rh they would get along better by appealing to one of the waiters. Under his guidance they succeeded very well, as we learn from Frank's account of the dinner.

"Doctor Bronson told us that cabbage soup was the national dish of the country, and so we ordered it, under the mysterious name of tschee e karsha. The cabbage is chopped, and then boiled till it falls into shreds; a piece of meat is cooked with it; the soup is seasoned with pepper and salt; and altogether the tschee (soup) is decidedly palatable. Karsha is barley thoroughly boiled, and then dried over the fire until the grains fall apart. A saucerful of this cooked barley is supplied to you along with the soup, and you eat them together. You may mingle the karsha with the



tschee as you would mix rice with milk, but the orthodox way of eating is to take a small quantity of the karsha into your spoon each time before dipping it into the soup. A substantial meal can be made of these articles alone, and there are millions of the subjects of his Imperial Majesty the Czar who dine to-day and many other days in the year on nothing else. The Emperor eats tschee, and so does the peasant—probably the