To tell you frankly, yogurt is one of the few milk products that speak with unbounded eloquence to me.
The modern slogan, "Eat it—it's good for you," seems more of a stigma than an inducement. I personally scorn anything that is labeled as being beneficial for my tummy, my blood pressure, or my future arthritis. The probability of an unlonged-for bite aiding my health to some microscopic degree does not interest me in the least; all the assurance in the world that I would live an hour longer if I took a forkful of "medicinal" spinach certainly wouldn't influence me one bit. But, if the spinach were cooked in a gourmet-like fashion, that is quite another matter. …
I hope I've made it quite plain that you couldn't persuade me—free, white, and over twenty-one—to eat yogurt unless I liked its taste. And I feel sorry for fanatics who are always ready to swallow some unflavorable dish because they are convinced—or are hoping—that it is good for them.
One doesn't have to try to persuade European gourmets to eat their yogurt—it has been their darling for many years. Particularly in Paris, where people lived to eat and not vice versa, it was regularly used as a dessert, being preferred to heavier ones after a copious meal. Yogurt first appeared in small Latin Quarter restaurants, in the Oriental bistros, in out-of-the-way streets, like Rue Monsieur le Prince and Rue des Ecoles Médecine. But fine edibles have their passports extended in no time, and soon you could say a merry hello to jars of yogurt sitting on the plates of lovely sophisticates and serious epicures in the two charming gardens of the Ritz. Swiftly yogurt claimed its place on the menus of other famous restaurants, like Prosper Montagné's, Larue's, Chez Maxim, or Prunier's.
I too have eaten it in Paris, in the little bistros and in the much-revered establishments, but I first learned to eat it in Bulgaria, its native habitat. It was a girl, of course, who initiated me into the mysteries of unmysterious, simple yogurt. Clarissa, the Bulgarian beauty, would launch into long dissertations on how she could thank a steady (and oh, so easy!) diet of yogurt for her beautiful skin, and en passant mentioned that one has to be just as beautiful inside as out.
Not that I didn't also see her devote herself on occasion to a grilled breast of baby lamb, cut into tiny sections, salted and peppered, and served on a wooden plank with halved tomatoes around it. Or to a grilled whole goose liver, which is of tremendous proportion and delightful flavor in Bulgaria. Ladies with a hearty appetite always appeal to me. Love of good food is a hopeful augury.
Naturally, I should like to go on talking about Clarissa; but I feel that, since you are more interested in eatables than in my amorous adventures, I had better tell you all about yogurt. I'll resent it, however, if you think that Clarissa wasn't adorable enough to eat, and I shall return to her later. But first, yogurt:
To make you utterly at home with the famous Bulgarian milk product, I shall begin with the very elementary. Yogurt comes in a wide-mouthed glass jar, even in Bulgaria—unless you are living in a remote county among the peasants, where it might be put up in any sort of container at all. When it is good and cold, the consistency is like that of a fine custard. A thin yellowish film forms on the surface of yogurt, but the moment you break this with your spoon the rest of the stuff is snow-white. If you stir the yogurt even a little, it changes its consistency almost at once, and becomes a smooth, satiny cream which is very agreeable to the touch of spoon and lips, as well as pleasing to the eye.
The taste is piquant and very refreshing, especially on a hot day. That piquant flavor—too odd for some palates—is completely changed by adding a spoonful or two of granulated sugar, or honey, or any kind of jam. Yogurt is best with apricot jam, but some people like it with strawberry or plum or even orange marmalade. Fresh fruit, particularly berries, with yogurt and sugar is positively gorgeous. The thing grows on you, and it soon becomes a habit for all your life; or rather, all your long life, since yogurt (to me this is quite incidental) is alleged to be one of the factors in promoting longevity.
It was the great Russian microbiologist, Professor Ilia Metchnikoff, who developed this theory, and in 1908 won the Nobel Prize in medicine for this epoch-making work. Chance played a part in the matter—Professor Metchnikoff happened to be traveling in Bulgaria, just as I did later. But, while I was interested in youth, he was interested in centenarians. He was struck by the fact that the peasants in Bulgaria often lived to be a hundred or more and that the average life-span was eighty-seven years. Investigating their habits, Metchnikoff found that these old peasants were handicapped by the most primitive hygienic conditions, which certainly should have killed them off young. At the same time, however, he learned that the mainstay of their diet was a kind of sour milk which under analysis proved to contain an enormous amount of lactic acid microbes. These microbes, he said, prevented the multiplication of noxious bacteria which infest man's alimentary canal and consequently shorten his life.
But since there were other microbes in milk as well, the difficult task of Professor Metchnikoff was to extract only the necessary microbes and implant these in sterilized milk so as to present to the world the perfect product. The newly isolated microbe was named Bacillus bulgaricus, in honor of those old Bulgarian octogenarians.
In Biblical times there was already mention of soured milk—and all sour milk contains some Bacillus bulgaricus. In Genesis, Abraham offered his guests some soured milk and some sweet milk, as well as some veal that had just been brought in. In the Fifth Book of Moses there are a lot of foods Jehovah allowed to his people, and he made them eat plenty of soured milk. It is not recorded if Methuselah, who lived to the ripe old age of 969 years, ate soured milk; but I take it that he did, because in his time this was the mainstay of the diet.
In Egypt, since remotest antiquity, the people had enjoyed soured milk which was known as leben raib, and in Africa yogurt is known as yaourth. Actually, yogurt can be spelled in as many different ways as the name Shakespeare. It is variously referred to as yoghurt, yoghourt, yogurt, yohourt, yahourt, etc.
But there are other sour milk products which resemble yogurt very closely and which have totally different names. For instance, there is kefir, made by adding to the milk grains akin to yeast which are also called kefir. Kefir therefore is a fermented milk product, just like yogurt. It is a great favorite in the Caucasus, and if you went there and asked the natives who first thought of kefir, they would reply in all seriousness that it was first eaten by Allah. For, with kefir, as with the leaven of bread, a speck is left over in order to create a new supply.
Then there is kumiss, also a Caucasian favorite, which you can find in Siberia, too, if you are willing to go that far. It is fermented, just like yogurt and kefir, but the milk used in it is either mare's or camel's, and a further difference is that it has a very small alcoholic content. Mare's or camel's milk must be absolutely fresh to make kumiss; to this fresh milk a tiny bit of yesterday's kumiss is added, and then the stuff is left to ferment. It goes far back in history. Herodotus mentioned it, and the ancient Scythians loved it. Kumiss, just like yogurt, is supposed to have great medicinal value for the alimentary canal and, in fact, around forty years ago became the rage in Swiss sanatoriums, since it seemed to help people afflicted with severe cases of pulmonary diseases.
In Egypt yogurt is made of buffalo milk. This is the leben raib I spoke of before. Petit whey, another yogurt-like product, is made by the Arabs from the liquid portion left over from the milk used in cheese-making.
Let us get back to yogurt, and especially how to make it. This is one of the simplest things in the world. First you have to free the milk from all the cream, because fat is not good in preparing yogurt. Then you have to boil the milk, stirring it constantly to keep it from sticking. Boil it for a full five minutes and then let it cool. Now, to each quart of milk, add a tablespoon or a tablet of yogurt culture (Bacillus bulgaricus), which you may obtain from a score of yogurt plants throughout the United States or from some drug stores. And then stir well again. After this pour the yogurt into glasses or jars, covering them with cheesecloth and placing them in a cool spot (not in the refrigerator!) for six hours. At the end of this time remove the cheesecloth, leave the jars uncovered for another six hours—and there you are! Now you can put it in the refrigerator and chill it before you eat it.
Yogurt is the finest breakfast on a hot summer day when you are unable to tolerate even the thought of heavy food. A variation of this is to mix it with stewed fruit, or with cereal and sugar. And in my opinion there is no more refreshing luncheon dish than yogurt mixed with cottage cheese and a wide variety of fresh garden vegetables, appropriately seasoned. But yogurt itself is not bound to seasons; it can be, and should be, eaten all year round.
What mostly concerns us gourmets is yogurt as a dessert, winter or summer. After a substantial meal of intricate meats and sauces, yogurt is the most reasonable and desirable denouement. As soon as you finish a jar, that pleasant but heavy feeling which follows almost all interesting meals instantly disappears to give place to a light and refreshing exhilaration. But since it is so easily digested, one really can eat yogurt any time of the day or night—in fact, it is one of the best night snacks in the world. I'd like to add another important point: yogurt is not fattening.
As you can plainly see, I found out a good deal about yogurt from Clarissa; in fact she turned my head in two directions at the same time—toward yogurt and herself. As a result I was pretty much on a steady diet in those days in Sofia: Clarissa and yogurt. But diets are made to be broken, and this one was no exception. …
It happened between two wars. It's funny—they say that there are no wars between wars, but they forget the personal variety, and they forget that very quiet times are often ambient.
In the thirties I had a small job with an oil firm out in Texas. It had been pretty tedious, drilling holes in the ground for eight hours a day and then having a hasty dinner in the company's mess with a lot of other roughnecks.
One day the manager told me that he had just received a wire from the New York office that I was to proceed immediately to New York and thence to Bulgaria. I suppose they must have noticed on my application that, aside from my native English, I spoke Bulgarian.
A frantic week in New York, another glorious one in Paris, then the Orient Express, and I arrived in Sofia. I stayed at the hotel for a while, but when it became too dreary and a strain on my pocketbook, I decided to take lodgings. I found two comfortable rooms off the Maria Luis Boulevard, very near the Banya-Bashi Mosque.
I met Clarissa, one day, on a side street of the Alexander Nevsky Place. She was an apparition—around nineteen, with her hair still in curls. That gorgeous hair was a Viennese blonde, almost the color of honey. I cannot describe it exactly; I only know that it was beautiful. Most Bulgarians are dark, but Clarissa inherited the color of her hair from her mother, who was Russian. Her eyes were as blue as the sky on a summer day, her skin was like alabaster, and her figure would have put to shame a Petty or a Varga. When I first saw her, I thought her lovely, sweet smile was directed at me and, heart in throat, I approached her. As I started to stutter something banal—that we must have met before somewhere, or something equally silly—a peasant maid, wrapped in a long woolen scarf, blocked my way and shouted in compelling Bulgarian, "Get away from here! How dare you! She's the colonel's daughter." But Clarissa interrupted and said, "Maria, he is obviously a foreigner. Let him speak."
Maria was the colonel's maid, and turned out to be the most inefficient spy, the most ineffectual guard, the mildest chaperon I have ever known. For on that first day I slipped her 100 leva (around a dollar), and our friendship was sealed forever.
Even though I didn't see a drop of oil, I saw Clarissa every day. She started out from barracks where the family lived at nine in the morning, and I joined her at a vantage point fifteen minutes later. We walked toward the art school where Clarissa was learning to paint, and Maria, the little maid, trotted after us. At five minutes before twelve, I took up my post in front of the art school door, and we went to lunch in the smallest bistros we could find in the vicinity. Pretty consistently, we stuck to a place where yogurt was the pièce de résistance. Friendship, nay, love, bloomed freely amidst a sea of benevolent Bacillus bulgaricus.
I was happy, but not entirely. I had never met Clarissa's parents. God knows, I suggested many times that I meet them, but whenever I mentioned them, Clarissa would become extremely nervous and exclaim, "Oh, my father'd kill you!" I would inquire why he should want to terminate my life, and then Clarissa would answer that, since I was a foreigner, I was not eligible, and furthermore I hadn't met her in the proper way.
But fate took care of the necessary introduction. One evening, as we walked arm in arm on little winding streets off the main avenues, I suddenly saw before me a man of tremendous build, sporting a musical comedy uniform freely embroidered with golden frogs. It was the Colonel! He was beside himself with rage and even his waxed mustachios trembled as he machine-gunned me with questions: "Who are you? Where did you come from? Where do you live?"
I answered very politely, showing as little emotion as was possible under the circumstances. The Colonel then grabbed Clarissa, and away he stamped, with the little maid trotting after them. Over his huge shoulder he shouted grimly, "You will hear from me!"
I did. The next day two Bulgarian gentlemen woke me up. One was dressed in black, and I couldn't help thinking that he looked like a funeral director. The other fellow was an officer from the Colonel's regiment. They told me that the Colonel considered his honor outraged because I had walked with his daughter without his permission, and that only blood could remove the stain. In other words, I was challenged to a duel. I pleaded with the two men and tried to explain that we didn't duel in the United States, but it was to no avail. I had to name two friends as seconds, and the four of them together sealed my fate in a few days. In the meantime I found out that the Colonel had been a one-time Olympic fencing champion.
It was at dawn that I got into a horse-drawn carriage with my seconds, and we drove off at a quick trot toward the barracks. We passed the spot where I used to meet Clarissa at nine-fifteen each morning, and I sighed wistfully but assured myself that I had no regrets.
We went up a winding staircase to the gymnasium in the barracks, and as we reached a landing I almost fell. "Pardon me, I stumbled …" I apologized to my seconds. "Stumbled nothing—here is some cognac."
In a dressing room I stripped and put on a pair of black shorts which were handed to me by the attendant. Then I was led out to the large gymnasium. The Colonel was already there, surrounded by his funeral directors. I began to tremble slightly, despite the Greek brandy. The officer who was leading the duel stiffly stepped forward and pointed out four swords laid on a table. "The pair to the left are the Colonel's own sabres. The pair to the right belong to the regiment. Please make your choice. But I advise you"—and his eyes bored into mine suggestively—"to fight with the Colonel's. They are of the finest Damascus steel and can easily cut a gun barrel in two. …"
I glanced at the swords and since they looked very much alike, at least to a layman, I agreed to use the pair belonging to my assassin-to-be. I had very little resistance left in me; I would have agreed to anything at that point.
The seconds measured and counter-measured and then drew chalk marks on the floor, and I suddenly found myself face to face with my beloved's father. I was frail at that time—today I am portly, as an honest middle-aged gourmet should be—and didn't weigh much more than a borzoi after a hard day's hare-catching. The Colonel was twice as big as I, and neatly padded—he was already a middle-aged gourmet. Before I knew what was happening the leading second shouted—"En garde!" And in a further split second "Go!"
I moved a step forward but I seemed to be paralyzed with fear. Suddenly I felt three lightning-quick stinging blows on my face, one on the right cheek, one on the left, and one on my nose, as though someone had slapped me thrice very hard. My God, I thought, this devil has cut my nose off! The leading second thrust himself between us in his well-padded fencing armor, and another second tore the sword out of my hand. The duel was halted. The attending surgeon ran to me and examined me minutely. "He's all right; it was the flat of the Colonel's blade that hit him."
They led us back to the chalk marks and I heard again the "En garde!" and "Go!" My fright was gone. I was furious, and I thrust out like a bull wounded by a picador's lance. I gesticulated with my weapon as though I were Don Quixote attacking the windmill. Before he could strike me again, the Colonel ran into my sword. I saw the flesh on his chest opening like a Maréchal Niel rose on a June morning. For a moment there was deep silence in the gymnasium; then a general murmur of incredulity. The surgeon and the seconds rushed to the Colonel and went to work on him. I was completely disregarded. Standing in a far corner, unobserved but still trembling, I rehearsed a haughty expression. When the Colonel's wound was sewed up with about fifteen stitches and he was properly bandaged, he came over to me and offering his hand, put his arms around me, and kissed me on both cheeks. "You are the first man who ever did this. You are all right. Maybe you should marry Clarissa …"
But being of a cautious nature, I decided to put a stop to the whole thing. At any rate, my great love had somehow evaporated in all this trouble, and I considered myself extremely lucky to have escaped with a whole skin. Besides, as everyone knows, very young men are not constant—during the hectic days preceding the duel, when I could not see my Clarissa, I had met a Rumanian girl from Bucharest, who was on a short visit in Sofia. She was dark, her figure would have been the envy of Billy Rose, her skin was of … Well, anyhow, I asked the company to transfer me to Bucharest.
I boarded the train without saying farewell to Clarissa; you know, once bitten, twice shy. As I stood there at the train window, I whispered a silent good-by to the town which had given me so much happiness and trouble. When the train started moving, I made my way to the restaurant car. I ordered some yogurt, and as I gazed at the smooth satiny cream, for a moment I thought I saw Clarissa's beautiful face outlined there. Then her visage vanished, and instead I saw distinctly a pair of waxed military moustaches. The things were positively trembling.…