1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

20

According- to the Abodah Zara/i, sl treatise on false worship, there was a mixed drink used in Babylon called Cuttach, which possessed marvellous properties. ** It obstructs the heart, blinds the eyes, and emaciates the body. It obstructs the heart, because it contains whey of milk ; it blinds the eyes, because it contains a peculiar salt which has this property ; and it emaciates the body, because of the putrefied bread

If poured upon stones, it

mixed with it.

which is

That it is better

breaks them ;

and of it is a proverb, '

The same Edomite

to eat a stinking fish than take Cuttach! "

and

also mentions ..Median beer

treatise

vinegar. The Hittites had been a powerful and civilized nation when the Jews were in an exceedingly primitive condition, and Abraham found thern the rightful possessors of Hebron, in Southern Palestine (Gen. xxiii.), and so far recognised their rights to the soil, as