Finlandish Bath/Sauna (1802); Mjod (1901); Shashlik (1902)

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Sun Feb 3 01:27:22 UTC 2002


FINLANDISH BATH/SAUNA

TRAVELS THROUGH SWEDEN, FINLAND, AND LAPLAND, TO THE NORTH CAPE IN THE YEARS 1798 and 1799
by Joseph Acerbi
1802

VOLUME ONE
Pg. 47:  *Boston is the name of a game of cards not unlike that of casino.
Pg. 198:  They make use of the flesh of seals, and prepare a dish called skalkroppe composed of collops of the flesh mixed up with flour and lard, and this they reckon excellent.
Illustration Opposite Pg. 297:
   A FINLANDISH BATH.
(A "sauna" is described in detail.  Unfortunately, the word "sauna" isn't here.  OED has 1881--ed.)

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MJOD

FINLAND AS IT IS
by Harry de Windt
London: John Murray
1901

Pg. 33:
   "Mjod" is a local product--a kind of effervescing cider--which, when iced, forms a refreshing and harmless summer drink.

(Mentioned several times in this book.  OED has "mjod" under "mead," but possibly could expand the entry--ed.)

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PUKKAS (KNIVES)

VIGNETTES FROM FINLAND,
OR TWELVE MONTHS IN STRAWBERRY LAND
by A. M. C. Clive-Bayley
London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company
1895

Pg. 14:  The bed-straw is called "our lady's straw," and the ox-eyed daisies "priests' collars," the wild everlastings, with their soft dawny heads, "cats'-paws."
Pg. 15:  "Two is always best," says the Finnish proverb; "two fish in the sea, two birds in the air, two pairs of shoes under the bench, and two stakes in the fence."
Pg. 37:  ...the Finnish proverb--"a crane in a tree soon breaks its leg."
Pg. 198:  ...we had only _pukkas_ (knives) with us....

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ALL THE RUSSIAS
by Henry Norman
Charles Scribner's Sons, NY
1902

Pg. 193:  ...the national plat of _shashlik_--the delicious caucasion mutton, cooked _a la broche_ over a wood fire.  We wait in happy impatience for its arrival, stemming our hunger with a _zakushka_ of raw herring.
("National" is the Republic of Georgia...OED & M-W have about 1925 for "shashlik"--ed.)

Pg. 237:  ...Khirghiz _kibitkas_....
(I've seen this in several books.  So how come, while I was in Kyrgyzstan recently, my tour guide used the Mongolian name, _yurt_?--ed.)

Pg. 367:  I must allude for a moment to the only way in which these remarkable and impressive figures are directly attached, namely, by a charge that they are not honest--that the Russian budget, in a word, is "cooked."
(Cooked the books?--ed.)



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