Meals: These vary according to price and type, with more expensive meals emphasizing variety and freshness. A good evening meal may consist of rice heaped high with fresh mutton, figs, dates, and olives pulled from the tree, finished with honey-candies. A more common evening meal (in a town or city) would be a simple ragout or meat stew, with bread, and fruit. A poor evening meal consists of just rice, perhaps with dates, dried fruit, a bit of tripe, or a strip of dried meat.

Coffee is readily available at most food outlets. Generally served strong and black, the grounds have been boiled in water to make a strong, fairly bitter brew. Sweet Coffee is also available, although that is more expensive, where the sugar has been cooked in with the coffee. Coffee is not, generally, sweetened after it has been cooked.

Jelly Delight is generally served as small squares of sweet jelly gusted in very fine sugar. It is commonly flavoured with lemon juice or rose water.

Koumiss: A drink of fermented mare’s milk, koumiss (KOO-miss) is very potent. It is forbidden in regions under moralist control.

Sherbet: A sweet fruit drink in Zakhara. It is often sold by vendors roaming the streets of major cities, carrying chilled tanks of sherbet on their back, along with cups to share.

Wine, Heart of Wine: A potent brew. Heart of Wine is a wine that has been aged in the desert heat or in mountain snows until the water has evaporated or frozen, leaving a more powerful substance behind. Like all alcoholic or fermented beverages, Heart of Wine is forbidden in moralist areas.