Note 7 — Chapter I · A DAY AT SCHOOL
Margaret Payson Waterman translation
Seated around an earthenware tray,7 each one, armed with a large spoon, dipped at will into a dish of pilaaf. On their knees they had, each one, a large piece of bread piled with olives, but this bread was quite different from ours; it was thin and flat, rather like a soft pancake than bread. For ten minutes no sound was heard but the crunching of jaws and the clatter of spoons (sounds which I would by no means advise my readers to imitate); then, before standing up, each rinsed the mouth and fingers again in a bowl of water.