Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/249

their atmosphere representing the four seasons--autumn and summer and winter and spring." Q "What kind of food is the most profitable?" "That which women make and which hath not cost overmuch trouble and which is readily digested. The most excellent of food is brewis [FN#404] or bread sopped in broth; according to the saying of the Prophet, 'Brewis excelleth other food, even as Ayishah excelleth other women.'" Q "What kind of kitchen, or seasoning, is most profitable?" "'Flesh meat' (quoth the Prophet) 'is the most excellent of kitchen; for that it is the delight of this world and the next world.'" Q "What kind of meat is the most profitable?" "Mutton; but jerked meat is to be avoided, for there is no profit in it." Q "What of fruits?" "Eat them in their prime and quit them when their season is past." Q "What sayest thou of drinking water?" "Drink it not in large quantities nor swallow it by gulps, or it will give thee head-ache and cause divers kinds of harm; neither drink it immediately after leaving the Hammam nor after carnal copulation or eating (except it be after the lapse of fifteen minutes for a young man and forty for an old man), nor after waking from sleep." Q "What of drinking fermented liquors?" "Doth not the prohibition suffice thee in the Book of Almighty Allah, where He saith, 'Verily, wine and lots and images, and the divining arrows are an abomination, of Satan's work; therefore avoid them, that ye may prosper'? [FN#405] And again, 'They will ask thee concerning wine and lots': Answer, 'In both there is great sin and also some things of use unto men: but their sinfulness is greater than their use.' [FN#406] Hence quoth the poet,