trate this luminous statement by crushing the shell of one of them and masticating the contents with an ostentatious, pantomimic show of relish. Suddenly, however, the expression of his face changed, as if the result had not fully justified his anticipations, and spitting out the crushed fragments of the "African" nut he said, "They have n't been roasted."
"Nada zharit!" [It is necessary to fry] he remarked impressively to the groceryman, "Amerikanski toujours zharit" [American always to fry].
"Zharit!" exclaimed the young groceryman, to whom fried nuts were a startling novelty,—"How is it possible to fry them?"
I explained to him that Mr. Frost meant to say roast them, and that in America raw peanuts are not regarded as fit to eat. To roast a nut, however, seemed to the groceryman quite as extraordinary as to fry one, and when he was informed that the peanut is not the fruit of a tree, but of an herbaceous plant, and that it grows underground, his astonishment was boundless. His practical, commercial instincts, however, soon resumed their sway; and when we left his shop he was already preparing to roast a quantity of the "wonderful American underground nuts," with a view to sending them out again for trial as samples of a new importation. I trust that his enterprise has been crowned with success, and that the idlers of Ekaterínburg, who obstinately declined to consume African nuts raw, have learned, long ere this, to eat American peanuts roasted, and to like them at least as well as the Russian fruits of idleness—the sunflower seed and the melon seed.[1]
The pleasantest experience that we had during our brief stay in Ekaterínburg was a visit that we made to Mr. N.J. Nesterófski, the cultivated and hospitable superintendent
- ↑ Loungers and idlers in Russian villages, and in municipal parks, sometimes sit for hours on wooden benches in the shade, watching the passers-by, or talking with one another, while they shell and eat the seeds of the water-melon and the great Russian sunflower.
