How the Germans take their Meals.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 July 1910, Page 4

How the Germans take their Meals.

SI'PERIOH TO ENGLISH METHODS.

"She (the German 'housewife) is more lioiiaewifely than *lie .Irishwoman, and ca nkoep appearanccs on smaller resources .stated Mr J. K. Maedo.vak in the Dailv Mail recently. "It the English "housewife" (he goes on) spent as wvrefiilly as'the German ■ hoiisejvi e an Kivlisli workman's household could he at least '20 to 25 per creiit more comfortable than a Gorman workman's household." . Tint is the reason why, with high prices and bad wage*, the German workman and the poorer German official manage to feod better Mian we do. , , Perhaps to understand'tins we .liacl l.otttr eat with a Gorman through his day. ~ , , He starts off with a very light breakfast, because, he prizes those early morning hours, and does not want to send himself to sleep with fat foodstuffs: while your Englishman, who is 'expecting only a. l>nof 'halt, with the loins girded, between now and .tea-time, stuffs to {he brim. Our German cousin ri.'os at / : nt 7.30 he takes coffee and splendidly bakod white rolls, which lattor are sometimes shaped like crescent moons, and are always delicious, ft lie is ricb bo takes butter with bis rolls; if he is a millionaire, ho fldds lionev. " WONDERFUL SOU?. From 8 to IL , he works-steadily. At I- , be dines. H« has soup, oh! wonderful soup. Meer soup, spairotti .soup; soup with sc[iiare.s ol "i\iv\it bread in it. soup cradling tender little sausages, soup aswaiun with little white, curly tilings, soup floating huge suet balks, soups ot all flavours and thicknesses, soups to satisfy the soul of a Swab. Tt would surprise you out of what odds ami ends a German housewife can make :i woiiderfii soup. In moderate.ly well-off households the next dish is the meat, cooked generally not as a joint, but in slices; veal. pork, or beef mostly, with veal for a pninie favourite, and always well done. Meat toudlf and tasteless comes on the table as solt and palatable .as a prime cut from a prize beast. Sometimes ftlie veal is cooked with cream, sometimes tlie meat is fried, boiled, stewed, roasted n.n <leach manner of moat and cooking tins its proper vegubable or salad, and he who should take Sauerkraut with beef would be for ever more accursed. To a noinally constituted Eeuton 'leiiltils (boiled, and then fried in butter) inevitably suggest the aceompmiying boiled pork. Tint von do not take much vegetable. The meat is the main tiling. "With the second helping of meat

you take stowed fruit, and more often than not the fruit is a sort of sublimated cranberry. That is the ordinary dinner high up into the middle and well down into the working' class. The rich put a dish between the soup and tho meat which is fish in the north near the sea and a dainty olla podrid-a of meat and vegetables in the landlocked south, and they finish u<-> the meal with something made of milk and eegs. or froth and pastry. Beer is added, of course. THE MrPDAY REST. Dinner is over, say, a't half-past oiro or two; but the offices do not start operating wntil three. Meanwhile coffee. Tho dinner has probably been taken at home, but if you are a male you will take your coffee in public. In winter shut up from itiho cold; in summer under treos, or in open cafes fronting the main .streets. From three till six you work, perhaps even till sevon. At half-past six or half-past seven you take your evening meal. Probably in a hew hall or a beer giarden. Aufsohnitt (cut slices of sill kinds of sausagebeautiful mosaic stuff), with pota'to .salad and lilack bread, make a good supper. Hut if you are extravagant you may take a Few thin slabs of dark brown tender meal and a morsel of vegetable. Beer, music, laughter, and good felloAvship round off the day. You will realise how food taken under such conditions will .nourish you more than when you gulp it down in an iinfriedly coffee house, and you will understand how much inferior qualify may be campeiusated for by an enlightened cooking. The German does not eat so much as the Englishman, he does not swallow huge chunks of meat .and bushels of greens and potatoes, but evory morsel is well-cooked, and every morsel nourishes.

Ff you went with me into a poor household you would be surprised to find what dainty dishes could be made out of odd scraps of meat got from the Freibank at the publicslaughterhoii.se. There is a ' regular cookery book full of dishes to he made of minced meat with hi-fiiyfriv varying subtle flavours. And potatoes now—there is a way of nioastiiif potatoes with carraVay seeds, that makes my mouth water to 'think of. "If Protection came to England." said a writer recently, "the English housewife would probably lea to cook, but" he adds satirically, "T think she woidd die first."