Gkebis, Chowkee, and more from Harry Franck (1910++)

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   The New York Public Library was closed on Saturday because of the snow.
   I read almost all of the Harry Franck travel books in the NYU Bobst
Library.    Two books--ZONE POLICEMAN 88 and VAGABONDING DOWN THE ANDES--were
missing.  Franck started with A VAGABOND JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD (1910), but his
later books were better.  His WEST INDIES (1920) book (posted here) was one of
his best.  Franck seems to be a western hemisphere guy.  Did he even visit
Africa?
   Overall--not as helpful as I'd hoped.

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A VAGABOND JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
by Harry A. Franck
New York: The Century Co.
1910

Pg. 121:  A wonderful invention is this _gkebis_ or Arab bread.
(Probably "Khoubz Araby."  Neither is in OED--ed.)

Pg. 417:  "Sure, we pay for our chow.  Where's the chowkee?  Tell him to get
busy."
("Chowkee" is used to mean someone who prepares chow.  I've been looking,
unsuccessfully, for "Chowhound"--ed.)

Pg. 485:  Life on the beach of Yokohama might have grown monotonous in the
days that followed but for the necessity of an incessant scramble for rice and
fishes.  Out beyond the park were a score of native shops where a Gargantuan
feast of rice and stewed _niku_--meat of uncertain antecedents--sold for a song.
 There were times, of course, when we had not even a song between us; but in
the Chinese quarters neared the harbor, queued shopkeepers offered an armful
of Oriental fruits and the thin strips of roasted pork popularly known as
"rat-tails" for half a vocal effort.  Or, failing this, there were the vendors (Pg.
486--ed.) of _soba_, who appeared with their push-carts as dusk fell,
demanding only two sen for a bowl of this Japanese macaroni swimming in greasy water,
and the use of a badly-worn pair of chopsticks.
(OED has 1896, then 1928 for "soba"--ed.)

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TRAMPING THROUGH MEXICO, GUATEMALA AND HONDURAS
by Harry A. Franck
New York: D. Appleton-Century Company
1916

Pg. 14:  A cheerful but slatternly Indian woman set before me a thin soup
containing a piece of squash and a square of boileed beef, and eight hot corn
tortillas of the size and shape of our pancakes, or _gkebis_. the Arab bread,
which it outdid in toughness and total absence of taste.

Pg. 25:  ...onions, flat slabs orf brown, muddy-looking soap, rice, every
species of _frijole_, or bean, shelled corn for tortillas, tomatoes--_tomate
coloradito_, though many were tiny and green as if also prematurely
gathered--peppers red and green, green-corn with most of the kernels blue, lettuce,
radishes, cucumbers, carrots, cabbages, melons of every size except large,...

Pg. 41:  The woman set before me a bowl of "sopita," with tortillas, white
cheese, and boiled whole peppers.

Pg. 157:  There was _carne de carnero_, tortillas and water, all for five
cents.

Pg. 221:  To the _enchiladas_, large tortillas red with pepper-sauce and
generously filled with onions, and the smaller tortillas covered with scraps of
meat and boiled egg which we bought of the old women and boys that flocked about
the train, he added a liter of pulque.

Pg. 350:  ...a stale slab of _pan dulce_, a cross between poor bread and (Pg.
351--ed.) worse cake.

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WORKING NORTH FROM PATAGONIA
by Harry A. Franck
New York: The Century Company
1922

   One of his best books.  It covers South America--a favorite topic.

Pg. 26:  "B. A." still retains, however, a few of those features which
visiting Americans below the Rio Grande are wont in their exasperation to dub
"Spig."

Pg. 45:  Here the waiters, like the _dormitorio_ porters, are white, with
king's-bed-chamber manners; and the six course meals are moderate in price and
usually excellent--except the dessert, the ubiquitous, unfailing, never-varying
_dulce de membrillo_, a stone-hard quince jelly which brings to a sad end
virtually every public repast in the Argentine.
(OED has 1920 for "membrillo"--ed.)

Pg. 59:  Tucuman retains none of the primitive methods by which cane is
turned into brown lumps of _panela_ or _chancaca_ on the little plantations
scattered through the Andes.

Pg. 84 (Chile):  Street after street is crowded with dingy little
hole-in-the-wall merchants; street stands abound in which are sold the favorite dishes of
the _gente de medio pelo_, the ragged masses,--_mote molido_ (boiled and
mashed ripe corn); _mote con huesillos_ (the same with scraps of bones and meat
thrown in), and the thick, greasy soup known as _cazuela_.

Pg. 274:  ...both in the hope that those who might already have heard one
number would be attracted by the other two and because Brazilians will not stand
for _sopa requentada_ (reheated soup), as they call a repetition of program.

Pg. 293:  This _carne verde_ ("green" meat), having just been killed and so
called to distinguish it from _xarque_ or _carne secca_, the salted or
dun-dried variety familiar in the rural districts, is cooked in several different
ways, all of which leave it hopeless  to live on.

Pg. 352:  Here (Amazon--ed.) one may have a _cocoa molle gelado_, in other
words, iced milk of green coconut, than which there is no better way of
quenching tropical thirst.  (...)
   He will not work again until he must have more _cachaza_ and _farinha_.

Pg. 356:  I wandered up the dingy back stairs to the _gallhinheiro_ (chicken
roost), as (Pg. 357--ed.) "nigger heaven" is called in Bazil, and found that
the negro at the door was acepting money in lieu of tickets.

Pg. 390:  The settlers at the "Reef" were almost entirely Portuguese
merchants, whom the aristocrats of the proud residential town of Olinda called
"mascates"--peddlers or hawkers.

Pg. 403:  If it is simply cooked, fermented, and dried, the result is
_farinha secca_, white, bran-like mandioca flour; a more elaborate process, including
grating under water, gives the yellow _farinha d'agoa_, which seems to be the
favorite.  A coarser form of the same product is called _farofa_, and during
the cooking there are precipitated the gum-like grains we call tapioca.
_Taquira_, a species of alcohol, is also produced from mandioca.  _Farinha_ and
_farofa_ are to the Brazilians what potatoes are to the Irish.
(OED has two "farofa" hits, but no entry.  There are 2,620 Google hits and
780 Google Groups hits for "farofa"--ed.)

Pg. 585:  ...some are the private and individual diggings of "pork-knockers."
Lone prospectors, aminly West Indian negroes who by law may wash for gold
even on the concessions of others are so called because, often setting out with
insufficient supplies, they soon come knocking at doors and asking for
something to eat--little pork of anything."  Even the verb, to "go pork-knocking," has
become an accepted one in the popular language of Dutch and British Guiana.

Pg. 631:  Eggs were three or for five cents; a large corn biscuit, or _pan de
arepa_, was one cent; "wheat bread" as a tiny, dry ring of baked flour of the
size and shape of a bracelet was called, cost something more than that;
native cheese, _papelon_, even milk, though probably from goats and certainly boi
led, could be had by persons of wealth.

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THE FRINGE OF THE MOSLEM WORLD
By Harry A. Franck
New York:  The Century Co.
1928

 Pg. 150:  Here a den where men are baking ghebis, the huge pancake-like
bread of Syria that lies stacked up in sheets everywhere in the food markets.