GERMANY TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3156, 7 August 1917, Page 7

GERMANY TO-DAY

FEEDING A HUNGRY NATION

PUBLIC KITCHENS

SOAP AT THIRTY SHILLINGS PER LB.

Professor P. Sefton Dalmer, who left Berlin on May 23, is writing in tho "Daily M'ul" a series of authoritative articles on the state of Germany. Ho is an Australian, who became English lecturer at Berlin University in 1901. Interned at Ejihi'eben from November, 1914, to March, "1915, lie subsequently enjoyed unusual opportunities of observing developments in Berlin.

How does Berlin feed its millions by means of the Volkskuchen or public kitchens? Let mo begin by dispelling the common British Illusion that the German public kitchen is a charitable institution. It is a State»So£i.->&tic institution, . and is based not on charity, Dut on co-operation. The Germans are far too clever to debauch the social conscience and the productive energy of . the poorer classes _by accustoming them to depend upon charity to help them out of their difficulties.

Although the Berlin public kitchen is by no means to be regarded as a model institution, the principle on which it is founded seems to me a right one. Its main object is to save food by eliminating the waste of labour, fuel, and material involved in the system of separate hqusehold kitchens, and to provide not free meals but thrift meals. Berlin Las now had these public kitchens for about a year, and there is no doubt that in some improved form they will |- survive after the war. They are now to be counted hy dozens, and are dotted about at various strategic points throughout the whole metropolitan area, so that ro resident has very far to go to reach one. My- home in Berlin was in the Flrtowstrasse, on the edge of the famous Tiergarten, Berlin's Hyde Park, in a district corresponding, let us say, to the Bayswater or Kensington district, and. the public kitchen we patronised was in a big municipal school, not more than five minutes on foot from my front door. Convicts at 'Work. Several of the big market-halls that had been put out of action by the war have been refitted by the municipalities to serve as public kitchens; it has Involved an expenditure of something like 2,000,000 marks (.£100,000), if I can. trust my memory. In these immense central kitchens the food is cooked in huge boilers made for the purpose, tho vegetables being washed and'peeled by machinery. From here lorries bring tho thousands of gallons of suppe (hot-pot) in air-tight cauldrons to the distributing centres. These centres are generally located iu the gymnastic halls (Turnhallen) of the hi" Government schools.

"flie heavy work of transport is done for the most part by convicts serving sentences of hard labour, the driver alone being a Government official. The soup is then dealt out by women who volunteer for tlie work. A characteristic labour-saving detail is that the Indies these women use are specially made to contain one litre (almost a quart) this being the maximum portion allowed to each person. .

a The public kitchens are run bv the e various town councils of Greater Berlin, which have the best opportunities of obtaining the necessary raw materials from the supplies already requisitioned by ■, the State with the minimum of inter--5 vention by the profiteering middleman. During tho winter there wcro times when my family and I found it practically impossible to; get along without having recourse to the public kitchens—T mean at periods when there, were absolutely no fish, no eggs, no potatoes, and L no vegetables to be had, and only half i a pound , of meat per person per week. t Tho middle and professional classes fc rather hung back at first, and it was v amusing to see how peonle we know followed suit once tho.v found "us "proud , English" nnblushingly lining up with our : cnamel pot in a tea-basket. Mangel-Wurze! Mixture. The one-course bill of fan> of the midday meal is chalked up in its daily ' variations on a blackboard in a prominent place at tho entrance to the kitchen. L The meal provided consists of a kind of thick soup that we should call hot-pot. \ This hot-pot would one day feontain : Nudeln, a German variation of macn- ■ roni. It would have been very good if it had not generally been musty; it was always welcomed with delight on account of its filling properties. Next day there would be mangel-wurzels, cut into small cubes nn<l boiled in' water thickened with barley or oatmeal. This : dish was generally greeted with satirical . remarks. Another day there would be stock lisli, tho most i unappetising dried salt fish imaginable, boiled to shreds and thieke'.ied with potatoes. I have often seen tliis fish in tho back streets of Genoa,' but never thought I should cat it. It' excited no enthusiasm among the hungry Berliners. But when on another day Sauerkraut' (shredded, cabbage that has been allowed to ferment in brine) appeared on tho notice-board, their faces were wreathed in smiles. On Sundays there is generally two inches of sausage in addition to the quart of "hot-pot" allowed to eacli person. On New-Year's Day, 1917, wo were even treated rice and prunes! During, tho timo of strike unrest tho menu grew perceptibly better, and pea>6oup once more appeared, but .soon afterwards mangel-wurzels (woe is me!) came . into their own again. We paid fivepence a quart, which was a- fair average price.' l This hot-pot was someLimcs fairly good, and it was always infinitely better than the food provided, .-t Ruhleb'en whiie I was there; but as a, rule, had we not been really hungry, we-could not have eaten it at all. No food can be got from such kitchens unless a person has registered as a customer at latest by the Thursday for tho coming week, and he must register for a whole week at a' time. This involves tho sacrifice of 31bs. out of tho 51bs. of his not;ito ticket for tho wcekv :-nd seventenths of his meat ticket (tho whole ticket throughout tho winter being only {rib.) Through this method of registration tho purveyors are enabled to estimate almost to a ladleful the amount of food required at each centre. Middle-class families always sent a servant girl to fetch the food and consumed it at home, as did tho poorer people also ford the most part, but young people in situations who preferred to eat their dinners at tho public kitchen could*do so af tables provided for tho purpose. Tho table appointments were of (ho plainest, but clean. The Well-fed Army. Were tho people satisfied with this arrangement? There is no doubt that it would have been a great deal moro popular had the people not been obliged to give up such a largo portion of their meat and potato tickets. They were, on the whole, very chary of criticism, being apparently afraid to find fault too openly with food provided by such an official body as tho "Berliner Magistral," which corresponds to the London County Council. To keop these public kitchens up to even a. moderate standard of efliciency the municipalities Have had to encroach upon the food supplies reserved for tho Army. The miiltary commissariat has even been forced by the stern protests of tho municipalities, who feared that the ' patience of tho people at homo was 1 being, tried to breaking point, to give up ' quantities, not large, it is true, of rice, 1 peas, and beans, that had been long since requisitioned for the officers and soldiers. The officers are said to have particularly j good fare, and they, certainly always look 1 well fed. If anyone is starving tho wo- ' men and children of Germany it is the J German Army. , .Tust before I left Germany there were ; signs of a new potato famine after a " period of several weeks, during .which S people hacl no difficulty in obtaining the : 51bs. weekly their ticket entitled them to. Ono word more as to llio shortage . of raw materials, a shortage tho Germans say as little as possible about in 'tho r newspapers. In all theso economic mat- j ters, as well as in military alfairs, they . will "bluff" as hard as they can to the j very last moment. Tho confiscation of 0 all zinc bath tubs is threatened; tho g organ pipes and bells of churches disap- t paarcd long ago. The leather straps at- c ]

tached to the windows of railway carriages liavo been removed. Oils ot <ul sorts are practically unobtainable., 1 heard of a Berlin lady only a fjw Y/?n ago who gave 200 mark (£10) for lOlbs. of ordinary salad oil and thought herself lucky to get it. Paraffin mar not bo sold in th 6 shops between Appl 1 ana September 30. Methylated spirits c;in So obtained only by peoplo in s P e trades who have a permit Ammonia, boracic acid, vaseline, and glycerine ha\o D (Tisappearod from the shops, a,u ', o P° ' •B. almost forgotten that such a ,J' l j» ' benzino ever existed. rurpanhni to an end long ago. How_ the T )iun '.,' is , still contrive to paint tho nonse* * yond me, but'somehow the.v manage 11. |'y 'Tlie Germans have during this war les displayed wonderful ingenuity m l'nrtJS ; ing something Vhafc does "?' mOS L Mu£ for everything in tho world. - 11e1 T., 1 of substitute materials is itiexhanstble. t0 tfotlong ago we heard that huge orders l 1}" for white table linen had been placed with* several firms. These cloths weie , bv no means intended to deck the soiW •'iers' tables, but were to be ised as ' lc Tini»g i"or their boots. Such straws serve To s*iow which way tho wind is blowing. 116 *s Tor soap, it is a luxury. Early in u " May I saw a pile of common scai> ot n " Dutch origin at WerCheims'—a. sort 01 Berlin AVliiteley's. It costs about is. bd. re for 150 grammes (a • little more than .jlo.J, and was selling rea'STly! to sheaf of Food Tickets. u ' A Berliner is entitled to receive each week food supplies on the various ration tickets the landlord or Portierfrau . pro'e' vides him with. The method of distri- .' 5 butiou of these ration tickets is very ts simple. The landlord or the caretaker lt " (Portierfrau) of each house makes oiit j l ' on a printed form provided for the pur- '■? pose a list of the families in the various °' flats, stating the number of persons in each. .This list is handed in to J"® ?' Brotkommission—District Bread Ticket 111 Distribution Committee —which lias its '' 6 office in a classroom of one of the big municipal schools. There are many such U J offices spread over Greater Berlin, so "t that no one has to' go very far. This 10 committee then gives the exact number of tickets required to the Portierfrau, lV * who distributes them to the various r " families in tho house and gets a printed " receipt for them. One gets quite a shear 5 " of such tickets, of all colours and sizes, 16 handed in at the door once a month. a For each of the following commodities n there is a separate cardi—-Bread (3}lb. a r- week), meat (lib. a week), butter (ljoz.), and marg-u'ino (loz. a week), eggs (during the winter 1 a; fortnight, 'now 3 a it fortnight), potatoes (slb. a week), sugar ir (Jib. a fortnight), milk (varies according js to age, but is only allowed to children l- up to the age of 6 years and to invalids :e in case 3 where a committee of doctors )t decide that it is absolutely necessary), tl There is an extra ticket called the 1- Lebonsmittelkarte, which enables the is holder to buy certain, quantities of oatj. meal, barley, seniolina, jam, canned vegeif tables, herring 6, soup tablets, etc. t Ecaders must not suppose, however, that 3, all those good things on tho grocery u tickets are handed out at onco. Each e week a proclamation is posted up on the advertisement pillars at the street core ners, making known that, say, 3jOZ. or g sometimes even 7oz. of harley, or 7oz. ot r oatmeal, or 3Joz. of semolina, or perhaps, o if it is a good week, 7oz. of barley and o 3Joz. of semolina will be distributed as his weekly portion to' each person appl}>s ing ill time. Every week brings one at o least of these extras with it, and on rare s occasions—three times during the whole 0 winter —there was lib. of so-called jam allotted to each person. ® Mangel-wurzel Queues. >- The chief ingredients of this jam were 11 mangels and beetroot sweetened , with f saccharin. It was not altogether a tasty concoction, and the German soldiers _at the front,' who get practically nothing s but this eternal "marmalade,' .as the - Germans call jam, to put on their bread, - aro said to mako it the butt of th© dogT ce'rel in which they are so fonu of in- - duMng. Of canned vegetables tliero was 1 oulv one distribution during the past f winter"—it was in March, and they gave us 21b. each. The number of liorrmgs diss tributed during the last six months was s one to each person on three separate - occasions, and they cost about six--1 pence each. Fresh vegetables—when i thoy are to be had —can. bo bought without cards. Brussels sprouts and spinach were obtainable during part of the winter, but cost as much as 3s. a pound. We could sometimes get a head or - coarse white cabbage from some hidmgplace under the counter in the greengrocer's shop; such a. cabbage cost -s. f Horse-carrots were greatly in demand at 8d a pound. Mangcl-wurzols, obtainable ; on the potato card, cost only Jd. a pound. For my part I never want to see another I mangel-wurzel as long as I live, much ' less to have to mako my dinner oft one, as mv family and I not seldom had to 5 do. In spite of the unappotisingness of - this."vegetable, J '.l have seen long.queues of people standing for an hour at a time ; at tho Wittenberg Platz market when a [ lorry happened to draw up laden with thes'o roots, often in a half-frozen state. No ono ever knew beforehand when or : at what shops wares were expected to .arrive, so it wns a matter of luck if you happened to get to tho right shop at 1 ; ho '. right time, and it was amusing to notice the interest with which people peered ' into ono another's baskets in tho sueet ! in ordor lo_ got hints as to whero there was something-to bo had. ' In. the days ivhen, potatoes were so rare, about Christmas . time, trailing ; ! groups of- peoplo. armed with potato nets ' could be seen, running, as fast as their 1 legs ivould carry them from one shop to another. After thoy had been standing perhaps for an .hour at oue place tho ominous placard with "Kartoffeln ausverkauft" ("Potatoes sold out ) would appear in tho shop window. . The door would be locked, and oft the whole band would scour to tho next shop that rumour ( • credited with potatoes. At present, however, these queues nave in most cases been rendered superfluous ~ bv tho introduction of customers lists. One can, l'or instance, only obtain meat at that particular butcher's shop where one has had one's ticket stamped , one's ticket number registered. The meat tickets are, of course, good for the same amount of meat at a restaurant, 100. . There is in Berlin no such possibility as , there is in London, where a gr«edy and ; unpatriotic individual, having consumed . his one-and-threepence-worth of luncheon ( a.t ono restaurant, may go next door and t liavo another one-and-threepence-worth. ] The prices of the rationad articles have , been fixed fairly low. The loaf of rye . bread for the week costs, for instance, 7Jd.; the wheaten loaf, Bd.; butter is a little over 3s. a pound; margarine, 2s. a pound; 6iigar" costs 4id. a pound; are now 4d. each. The price of meat— f and such meat!—varies according to the . cut from 2s. to 2s. 9d. a pound. Ham, bacon, and sausage of the better kinds are no longer to be seen in any of the t shops, but occasionally an enterprising tradesman will manage to get a small _ quantity of bacon 01* butter through from 1 Holland or Poland, and ho 6ells _it 3 secretly, independently of tho ration tickets. He gets as much as 12s. a pound 1 for the bacon and Bs. a pound for butter, t Swiss cheese is tho only cheese that has d been seen in the Berlin shops since Sep- b tember last. It cost 2s. lOd. a pound, h but in order to get it on the Tare occa- t sions when it appeared, one had to stand p for 'two hours or so in a. queue finally to buy only Jib., if it did not happen to f: bo'sold just before one's turn came. 11 ii Whale a Delicacy. r 1 In modern Berlin it is, moreover, practically out of tho question, even for rich | £ people, to have guests to meals, so few s( articles of food are thero that do not come under tho ration cards. Tho ar- °. tides that. may bo purchased without cards are poultry, including crows and Qi sparrows, but excluding fowls, which are j only obtainable on the ineat cards, and v cost Cs. Gd. a pound; fish, which was practically unobtainable all tho winter, but was "beginning to reappear in the w shop windows when I left Berlin (the j. flesh of young whales was pronounced quite a delicacy); plovers' eggs, which i, cost from Bd. to 2s. 6d. each; _ fresh vegetables, and what fruit there is. A fat young gooso brought as much as 10s- r , a pouud, and Ganseschmatz (gooso ,i grease) sold at 20s. a P,® U P. I saw apples, mere windfalls, marked at 3s. a pound in February, and j l£ sinco then fruit har> disappeared alto- o j. gether. . , Is In speaking of the bread, one must remember that tho 3ilb. weekly allowance is not by any means equal in nutritive i properties to a similar quantity of Fug- w lish bread, the German grain being, by p a order of the ■Governraent ; ground out to 95 per cent. This is said to mako the bread very unwholesome for people with delicate digestions, Wheaten bread was

! fast disappearing from tho 6hops when I loft Berlin. Cheese, rice, dried tans, and peas are not to be had at all, .1101' use coffee, tea, and cocoa obtainable, except ia tho cafes, where a cup of milkless cocoa, with saccharin, costs Is. At the Esplanadu Hotel they even charge 2s. Gd. for a cup of cocoa and 2s. for a small pot of tea, When people study this list of rations they will understand my statement that the extreme limit has been reached to which it is possible to reduce tho people's food without disaster to the public health, and will not wonder that discontent is rifo. Many of tho common people are convinced that the.v are suffering for the sake of tho capitalist, to Whoso greed some of tliem aro beginning to attribute the war. In April, about tho time of the big strike, I saw scribbled up in several third-class railway compartments tha following symptomatic bit of doggerel:— "Wir kampfen niclit fur Dcutschland a Ehr', . ' . ~, Wir kampfen bios fnr die llillionar . ('Tis not for Germany's name so fair We flght but for the millionaire.)