Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living: Chapter IX

Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living, by Henry Theophilus Finck is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter IX : GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES

IX. GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN DELICACIES

A COSMOPOLITAN CUISINE.

In the matter of cuisine the Germans are the most cosmopolitan of all peoples; they learn eagerly from other nations, and sometimes improve on the original. They like variety; when traveling, unlike the English and Americans, they prefer things new to them, and it has been justly said that one of the Germans' chief objects in touring is to enjoy exotic pleasures of the table.

At home they avoid monotony by frequently supping in restaurants or beer gardens, the whole family being taken there, including the dog, unless a great crowd is expected because of a special musical treat, in which case the public is informed that "Hunde dürfen nicht mitgebracht werden."

And how enthusiastically these burghers discuss the diverse good things placed before them! A Berlin author maintains that three-fourths of all Germans, and four-fifths of their cousins, the Austrians, talk more about eating than about anything else, and that the most successful novels in their countries are those in which there are descriptions of banquets that make the mouth water. No need of preaching gastronomy to them!

To deny that the Germans have a cuisine of their own, as some of their own writers have done, is folly. While they have set a good example in being willing to learn from their neighbors—as the Italians learned from the Orientals and the French from the Italians—they have also originated and improved a number of things gastronomic which deserve to be transplanted to other countries.

A contributor to the "Frankfurter Zeitung" points out that "more than one dish which in Germany, France, and England is relished under a French name was originated by German cooks." He exhorts these cooks to give the dishes they create German names, choosing such as a foreigner can pronounce. England has succeeded in adding some of its food names—like beefsteak, Irish stew, mock-turtle soup, pudding, roast beef, toast—to the world-language, and the French have shown by their adoption of Lied, Concertmeister, Hinterland, Bock, etc., that they would not balk at German culinary terms.

DELICATESSEN STORES.

As a matter of fact some German terms have already become part of the world-language—among them sauerkraut, pumpernickel and the names of various sausages and cheeses. The most eloquent testimony to German international influence is, however, the ubiquitous delicatessen store. In New York there is one every few blocks, and these places are patronized by many who are not Germans. To be sure, few of these shops equal the originals in Munich, Dresden, or Berlin, in variety and gorgeousness of display.

Edward Grieg, like most of the great composers, was an epicure. It is related of him that one of his favorite amusements was to gaze at the displays of good things in the delicatessen stores. One day, while lingering before one of these windows he said to the American composer, Frank Van der Stucken: "What an ideal symphony! How perfect in all its details, in form, contents, and instrumentation!"

Grand gastronomic symphonies they are, indeed; and what is more, the appeal of these delicacies is to the palate as well as to the eyes. When a German pays his good money he wants something good to eat, and if he is fooled, woe to the culprit. Strict are the laws, and enforced they are, too. Officers of the health boards visit the stores at unexpected times, taking away samples for chemical analysis. Fines are inflicted for the least lack of obedience to the pure food law, while gross offenders may be punished by life-long imprisonment with hard labor.

The examiners, of course, visit not only the delicatessen stores but the butcher shops, groceries, bakeries and all places where food is offered for sale.

In Berlin there is a special institute for the inspection of foodstuffs which is directly under the control of the police. It makes chemical and bacteriological examinations of things offered for sale. Purchasers who suffer from the ill effects of foodstuffs have the privilege of applying to the police, who promptly make an examination of the suspected article. This does not cost the complainant a penny and the expense to the city of this invaluable institute is only about $12,000 a year.

Encouraged by the knowledge of these facts, a German may boldly enter any delicatessen store, confident of getting things that will taste good and do no harm. And what a variety of luxuries is spread out before him!

Cold roast joints of all the butchers' meats are placed in line on the counter, with hams, raw or cooked, and sausages diverse, all eager to be sliced to suit. I say eager because these things—especially the sausages and the hams—taste so good that it surely must give them altruistic joy to be eaten. Cold fowl is there, too, ready for the carving knife, or to be taken away whole. The Germans often lunch or sup on these sliced meats, huge platterfuls of which are brought on the table—Gemischter Aufschnitt—and none of it is wasted, you may be sure.

Chicken and fish salads diverse, including herring salad, and potato salad—one of Germany's great contributions to the world's gastronomic treasure—are at hand, as well as another international delicacy of Teutonic origin—sauerkraut, raw or cooked; and sauerkraut is a delicacy; nor is it indigestible when cooked the right way and long enough. Proof of its high standing is provided by the fact that France's gastronomic high priest, Brillat-Savarin—whose famous work on the Physiology of Taste has become so popular that a penny edition of it is sold in the streets—puts it, with partridge, on the menu of one of three fine dinners he suggests. The French, indeed, are almost as much addicted to the eating of sauerkraut as are the Germans. In England and America not a few persons foolishly sneer at it as "rotten cabbage." It is no more rotten than pickles are rotten, for it is simply pickled cabbage—cabbage pickled in its own juice plus salt, and soured by fermentation.

The pickles eaten by Germans are not all sour; they like, almost better than the sour kinds, the dill pickles, which are cucumbers preserved in a liquid flavored with the blossoms and seeds of an umbelliferous Oriental plant, anethum, cultivated in German gardens for its spicy aroma. Teutons seem to take to this naturally; with others it is an acquired taste, like that for olives.

Smoked or soused herrings, sprats, and diverse spiced fish (marinirt) are always on sale in the delicatessen stores, and they are acknowledged among the best specialties of Germany. Eel and other fish in jelly are other characteristic edibles the Fatherland has reason to be proud of; and have you ever eaten cold goose in an acidulated meat jelly? It is worth while going to Berlin, just to taste this Prussian Gänseweisssauer.

Smoked Pomeranian goosebreast is always in stock; its taste is not unlike that of raw smoked ham and there is no danger of trichinosis, though, to be sure, that danger from eating ham has been reduced in Germany to a minimum by the strict system of meat inspection.

The heads and feet of calves, sheep, and swine, wild and domestic, are much in demand; a wild boar's head often is the center of interest in the show window of a delicatessen store. Of course there are also canned meats and vegetables, with diverse fancy groceries and cheeses of various countries, together with crackers and breads of diverse shape, size, and color. But enough has been said to show that a German delicatessen store is a treasure house of appetizing foods, many of them peculiar to the Fatherland, and most of them agreeable to the palate of a real gourmet.

It is possible that a thousand years hence Bismarck's fame as a statesman may have waned; but Bismarck herring will continue to be served in all lands until the seas are fished out. On a warm summer day, when you are not hungry and yet feel a vague longing for something piquant, try a Bismarck herring with potato salad. You will bless me for the advice. It is very good for the stomach, too, the doctors say.

SAUSAGES AND SMOKED HAM.

The French have excellent sausages and so have the Italians. They are hard to beat, and yet, in the matter of variety and general excellence, the Germans as makers of würste are supreme.

Various are the tastes of sausage eaters, but all of them may be gratified west of the Rhine. I have before me a book by Nicolaus Merges bearing the title "Internationale Wurst und Fleischwaaren Fabrikation." Concise directions are given in it for the making of more than a hundred and fifty kinds of sausages, all of which are manufactured in Germany, though some are of foreign origin.

Why so many kinds of sausage? There is not much difference in their nutritive value. They are made in different ways simply to secure variety in Flavor, to please all palates.

The book referred to shows how this variety is secured. Different meats are used and these are diversely blended, spiced, and cured. The possibilities are unlimited; the hundred and fifty varieties in the Merges volume are a mere fraction of the total number, nearly every locality having its special kind.

Of liver sausages there are two dozen varieties, the cheapest being made from ordinary beef liver while the Gänselebertrüffelwurst (goose-liver-truffle sausage) may cost a dollar a pound. Of sausages in which blood is used there are more than a score. These are cheap, and—well, if they cost nothing I wouldn't eat them.

The biggest of all the sausages is the Cervelat made in Braunschweig (many German towns have become world-famed by the making of some particularly well-flavored sausage, cheese, cake, or beer). The Brunswick brand is compounded of beef and pork, both lean and fat. The Westphalian variety includes less beef. Some kinds of Cervelat exclude pork, containing only beef or veal. There is also a homœopathetic Cervelat. It is intended for convalescents, and has a minimum of fat and spices. A kosher Cervelat is made for Hebrews.

Beef from old cows is not in the best repute, yet for the making of Salami it is preferred to the tenderloin of a young steer. (The toughest meat sometimes has the richest Flavor.) Salami hails from Italy, but special varieties of it are made in Germany, as well as in Holland, Switzerland, Russia, and Hungary.

It is needless to give details regarding Plockwurst, Mettwurst, Knoblauchwurst, Knackwurst, Schwartenmagen, etc., in all their transformations. In some varieties anchovies, kidneys, or brains are used.

Bärenwurst is not often seen now, as bears are getting scarce. Horse meat of course is used (why not?) for cheaper sorts, and the bow-wow joke of the comic papers is not altogether without foundation. American Indians agreed with the Chinese in regarding dog meat as a great delicacy—the dish of honor to be served to guests. Dog meat sausage may be quite legitimate, as long as it is honestly labeled as such.

There is a story of a wealthy Berlin butcher whose son had been promoted in the army by Moltke, and who, to show his gratitude, advised the Field Marshal never to eat sausage. But those days of uncertainty are past. Inspection is now so strict in the Fatherland that one can safely eat whatever is offered.

When the eminent German novelist, Ernst von Wolzogen, visited the United States (1911) he exclaimed, on the eve of departure, to a reporter for the New York "Staatszeitung": "Great heavens, if you knew what an indescribable longing has often seized me in your country for a good German sausage! No—for their food I cannot envy the Americans."

Considering the large number of Germans in the United States it seems strange that they do not insist on having as good sausage made here as on the other side. But they do not. The home-made sausage is usually compounded of worthless scraps, and is apt to be indigestible. As for the "imported" Cervelat and other kinds, they are often so in name only—which explains that wail, de profundis, of Freiherr von Wolzogen.

American sausages made after English or original recipes are generally spoiled by an excessive amount of sage. Sage should always be used homœopathically, else it overpowers all other flavors. Were I Czar in the realm of gastronomy I should forbid the use of sage altogether.

The next time you go to Europe do not forget to make an automobile trip from Munich to Berlin, taking in Nuremberg on the way. We did that, with some friends, in the summer of 1912, and when we reached the city of Hans Sachs we steered straight for the Bratwurstglöcklein, a little eating shop, known by name at least, to epicures the world over, though only one dish is cooked in it, and that dish, as the name indicates, is sausage.

Five Würstchen, no bigger than your thumb, are served with a portion of sauerkraut. The cost is half a mark—twelve cents—a portion and you can have as many encores as you like. Some of us took four, and so tender and tasty were the little things, as well as the kraut that we had no occasion to regret it. After all, we were mere tyros, as our waiter informed us; he has known many a man to eat a dozen portions or more and not send for an ambulance—at least, that's what he said. The number of portions served daily vary from 3,000 to 5,000; the record is 25,000 served on a day when there was a Sängerfest.

Nuremberg has two other eating places similar to this, but the Bratwurstglöcklein maintains its preeminence, owing to its traditions; for it was in its little rooms that the men who (with the aid of the Bratwurstglöcklein) made that city famous—among them Sachs, Welleland and Dürer—used to gather for food and drink.

After we had paid our bill—not a ruinous one for an automobile party—we started for the next town on our list, after buying a few boxes of the world-famed honey cakes (Lebkuchen) of the town. We all had seen the other sights of Nuremberg before. Besides, we were on a gastronomic trip, and discipline had to be preserved.

Observation has convinced me that Americans would be as enthusiastic sausage eaters as the Germans are if they could get them as well made and cooked. In a large New York down-town restaurant you can see, on certain days, half the guests ordering "country sausages," which, though good, are not to be mentioned on the same day as those of the Bratwurstglöcklein. The inference is inevitable that a lunch-room serving honest duplicates of the German delicacy would prove a gold-mine.

The proprietor of another down-town restaurant who provides excellent little Frankfurters informed me he got them at a certain shop in which two butchers had successively made their fortune by simply manufacturing these honest little sausages and really smoking them instead of using "liquid smoke." It makes such a difference to the palate as well as the stomach.

Genuine Frankfurters are made of solid meat (not lungs) and they are always smoked. They are known as Frankfurters throughout the greater part of Germany and Austria, but in Frankfort they call them Wiener Würstel, to dignify them, presumably, as exotics.

Smoked sausages and other meats are in great vogue among the Germans, whose addiction to them gives them the right to pose as true epicures. Do they not provide the whole world with smoked goosebreast, Hamburger Rauchfleish, and the best of all hams, the smoked Westphalian?

In South Germany they have a special word for smoked meats, Geselchtes, or Selchware. The composer Brahms never missed a chance to get a dish of "G'selchtes"; it gave him an appetite when nothing else would.

Bismarck, the most famous of German gourmets, took great delight in feasting on smoked meats and fish—Spickgans, Spickaal, Schinken, &c. He knew as much about the different varieties and the places they came from as any dealer in delicatessen, as we know from the table talk recorded by Dr. Moritz Busch.

Smoked Westphalian ham has carried the fame of Germany to the lunch tables of all parts of the world; and not a whit inferior in Flavor is the Austrian variety, Prager Schinken. Raw or cooked, these are among the superlative delights of the epicure, ranking with caviare, Camembert, and canvasback duck.

On the appetizing quality of properly smoked meats which makes the mouth water and facilitates digestion I have already commented.

German and Austrian hams owe their fame to the fact that they are smoked and otherwise cured scientifically, regardless of cost, with a view to developing the most delicate Flavor.

The first thing to be noted is that the men who cure the meats do not dare to denature them (i. e., spoil their natural Flavor) by soaking them in solutions of chemicals which are not only injurious to health but which would make it possible for them to hide the putrescence of spoiled meats—as is so often done in America.

The law on this point is very strict. By orders of the Imperial Federal Council, dated July 4, 1908, the following substances have been forbidden: Boric acid and salts thereof, formaldehyde, the hydroxides and carbonates of the alkaline salts, sulphurous acid and the salts thereof, the salts of hyposulphurous acid, hypofluoric acid and salts thereof, salicylic acid and its compounds, chloric acid and salts, and all coloring matter.

Consul Talbot J. Albert, of Brunswick writes that "the German inspection laws, especially in regard to hams and all hog products are so strict that their adulteration would be immediately detected, the products confiscated, and the manufacturer severely punished."

The ingredients used in the curing of hams before they are smoked are salt, saltpeter, and pepper. The quantity of these and other ingredients and the method employed are business secrets difficult to ascertain.

In America, sugar-cured ham is advertised in large letters. Sugar, no doubt, is a good preservative, and it is harmless, but somehow it seems as incongruous with meat as salt is with cream or butter. Ask an epicure if he would like his oysters with sugar, and see him shudder. In Germany, hams are seldom sugar-cured.

"The Daily Consular and Trade Reports" for December 8, 1909, contains such information on the subject of smoked sausages and hams as the consuls in various German cities were able to gather. They found that sausage is smoked up to three or four weeks, unless it is to be eaten at once. The smoking makes it lose some weight and cost more—but what of that, as long as the Flavor is improved? The American way is to save the full weight by using chemicals and then sell the denatured stuff as "smoked" meat. It is profitable to the packer. The consumer—well, it serves him right if he continues to buy such stuff without a protest.

Of the contributors to the Consular symposium on smoked meats in Germany, Vice-Consul Frederick Hoyermann of Bremen gave the most informing account.

"The fresh ham is put into pure common salt (sodium chloride) and is kept therein for about three weeks, whereupon it is washed and air-dried. After having been exposed to the air for about eight days it is ready for the smoking process, which lasts from six to eight weeks. It is hung up in the smoke of beechwood chips, which must burn slowly so as not to create heat or evolve too much smoke. The ham must be smoked thoroughly but gradually, and must remain cool while undergoing the process. Thereupon it is cleaned and is then ready for use."

Now note what the same writer says about the "quick-smoking" process: "Hams are smoked by a simpler and cheaper process, pine wood being used for smoking instead of beech, the time allowed for smoking is considerably reduced, and stronger smoke applied. Hams thus cured are, of course, inferior in quality, as they lack in Flavor and are not fit for export, because only high-class meats will pay the cost of transportation."

The so-called Westphalian hams do not all come from Westphalia. The name is generally applied to choice hams which have been smoked thoroughly but gradually in accordance with the methods indicated in the preceding paragraphs.

One more important detail. The Germans know the value of feeding Flavor into food. As Consul Carl Bailey Hurst, of Plauen wrote: "The best and most durable hams are those of hogs which have been fed during the few weeks previous to slaughtering on acorns or corn."

Juniper berries are sometimes thrown on the beech wood while hams are being smoked, in the belief that that still further improves their Flavor. Maybe it does—I have had no opportunity for comparisons. Possibly it is a mistake. The Germans, though they make the best hams and sausages in the world, are as a nation far from impeccable; in the use of spices, in particular, they often blunder grossly. It is surely an aberration of taste to mix cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon, caraway seeds, sage, or ginger with the preserving fluid; for these strong condiments destroy the individual Flavor of the meat.

Excessive use of spices is the chief blemish of German cookery. Many otherwise well-made dishes are spoiled by the addition of pungent condiments which completely monopolize the palate. The excessive use of these condiments is a survival of medieval coarseness. I shall not dwell on this, however, or on other deplorable relics of the coarse appetite of former generations, because the object of this book is not to point out the shortcomings of European nations but to call attention to practices in which they are ahead of us. Let us therefore proceed to another department of gastronomy in which the Germans (and their neighbors) can teach us useful lessons.

LIVE FISH BROUGHT TO THE KITCHEN.

The Paradise of fish-eaters is Copenhagen. New York and other American port towns could get some very important hints from the way things are done there. Before 1892 it was difficult to bring live fish into the town without contaminating them with sewage and spoiling their flavor. In that year a general sewage system was constructed by which the city's sewage is carried two kilometers out into the open sea, thus putting an end to the contamination of the ocean front and the harbor. The gratifying results of this reform were described by the London "Lancet's" representative at the Sanitary Congress in Copenhagen, October, 1910:

"This not only puts an end to the nuisances that used to arise, but enables boats full of live fish to come close to shore and right into the town by means of the fresh-water canals. In this manner at least the smaller fish are kept alive till the moment they are sold. Any number of wooden boats are pierced with holes and filled with fish; these boats just float on the surface of the water, and the living fish is taken out of them when wanted. But as every one cannot go to the water's edge to buy fish, there are water tanks on wheels and the live fish is brought to the doors of the people's houses.

"Never before," this sanitarian continues, "have I been in a town where all the fish, whether cheap or dear is so beautifully fresh. The principal fish market was built by the municipality and is let to a wholesale fish salesman. It is a delight to see how clean and bright these premises are kept. There is no spreading the fish on slabs so that dust and dirt may settle on them. Very pretty tessellated tile tanks are filled with running water, and here the smaller fish swim about."

In Berlin and other German cities the fish are also brought alive to the kitchen. An eminent artist who is also an ideal hausfrau, Mme. Gadski, informed me that she wouldn't think of buying a dead fish. "They are brought to the kitchen alive, and I reject those that are not swimming about," she said.

The Germans are great eaters of fresh-water fishes, and there are ingenious arrangements for bringing them to market alive.

The large fish of the ocean cannot, of course, be delivered alive, but the transportation facilities are now so excellent that not only the more expensive kinds, like sole, turbot, and sterlet, but the cheaper sorts, like cod, haddock, plaice, and herring, are brought to city and town markets in prime condition.

A German culinary authority specially calls attention to the fact that the "ancient and fish-like smell" is a thing of the past. In the days when transportation facilities were less adequate this odor made it necessary to boil fish in two waters, throwing the first away. Now the cook has only the natural odor of the unspoiled fish to deal with, which, being agreeable, is carefully preserved in the cooking.

The fishing places off the German coast are visited daily by fast steamers to collect the catch. The boats are provided with refrigerating apparatus, and so are the express trains which at Stettin, Geestemmünde, Cuxhaven, and other coast towns, take the fish from the boats and carry them at full speed to the cities all over the Empire.

The same excellent arrangements for keeping the fish cold without spoiling their flavor by freezing them are to be found on German steamers. On the eighth day out on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria I found the salmon as fresh-tasting as if it had just been caught. "How do you do it?" I asked Captain Ruser; and he explained the system—the refrigerating arrangements which, with steady ventilation, provide a frigid atmosphere without actually freezing the fish or the meat.

Such things cost time and money; but the Germans, being a gastronomic nation, consider them worth while, on sea as well as on shore.

Hamburg sets a good example in showing what a municipal government can do in the way of providing the people with fresh fish and telling them what to do with them. The following is from the "Fremdenblatt" of that city; similar notices frequently appear in the newspapers:

Sale of Cheap Sea Fish. "The Staatliche Fischereidirektion" informs us that on Tuesday, August 20, there will be on sale, at the known 150 shops, fresh haddocks—averaging 3/4 pound apiece—at 23 pfennigs [5-3/4 cents] a pound. Besides this, many shops offer for sale fresh mackerel at twenty to twenty-five pfennigs [5 to 6-1/4 cents] apiece, according to size. The mackerel is an excellent fish both for frying and boiling. New directions for cooking haddock in a variety of ways are contained in the illustrated booklet, "Fischkost," which is given free to purchasers at all the stalls.

The Hamburgers are lucky in having the "net gains" of sea fishing placed before them at the earliest possible moment. With the aid of the arrangements just referred to these fishes can, however, be bought in good condition as far away as Vienna. A few years ago the Austrian officials had a number of railway cars constructed for the transportation of sea fish and also of live fresh-water fish. Germany has had such cars for decades, bringing fish not only from her own ports but from Holland and elsewhere. African eels are sent from Algiers to Marseilles and thence by express trains all the way to Berlin.

Eels are usually despised in America and with good reason, for their scavenging habits often make them inedible. But there are eels that live on fresh food, such as small crustaceans at the bottom of the sea, and fish roe; and these are as good as any fish that swims. The large eels served in Berlin are as tender, juicy, and sweet-flavored as shad. When I was a student at the University of Berlin, one of my pet excursions was up the Spree, stopping at an inn where eels of medium size—blau gesotten, were served as a specialty. They were delicious, though they did look strikingly like snakes as they lay curled up on the plate swallowing their own tails.

Not a few persons whose education has been neglected refuse to eat eels, believing them to be allied to snakes, when in truth they are no more related to snakes, zoölogically, than whales are. And even if they were of the snake family what of it, if they taste good? The eminent Norwegian explorer, Dr. Lumholtz, who spent several years among the Australian wild men, told me on his return, while we were enjoying a dish of terrapin together at Henry Villard's, that much as he liked this reptilian delicacy, of which we Americans are so proud, he thought that python liver, which he had had frequent occasion to eat, was quite as good.

While studying at Heidelberg I did not neglect, it is needless to say, the Wolfsbrunnen, famous for its trout. I have eaten trout, caught by myself in many parts of the world, including the Maine woods, Lake Tahoe in California, and Trout Lake in the State of Washington; but none tasted better than a dish served in Berlin at a sumptuous new hotel oddly called Boarding Palace.

All over Germany fish-breeding in ponds is an important industry. Bavaria alone had, in 1909, over 33,000 acres of such ponds, and probably has many more now; Saxony had 200,000 acres, while Silesia had nearly 60,000. The total area of fish ponds in the Empire probably does not fall far short of a quarter of a million acres.

Carp are grown in special abundance, and German carp are very good to eat, especially when they have been artificially fed and fattened with rice, potatoes, fish meal, or dairy refuse.

Other kinds grown are perch, pike-perch, tench, eels, and trout of several kinds, including the American rainbow. The trout are fed shellfish, slaughterhouse refuse, horse meat, fish meal, and specially prepared foods.

Everything is done with German thoroughness, and the results once more prove gastronomy to be a good guide to wealth.

The profits are increased by selling the fish direct to consumers. Fish-growing associations have been formed for this special purpose all over the empire.

As these ponds are scattered all over the country it is possible to have everywhere fish just out of the water; and, as I have said before, the poorest variety of fish just caught has a finer Flavor than the best variety that has been kept a few days by any method whatever. I have lived in Germany three years and do not remember ever to have had on my plate insipid fish, such as we are doomed three times out of four to eat in our own country, chiefly because the fish are frozen.

Dr. Wiley insists in his "Foods and Their Adulteration" (1911) that "the consumer is entitled to know whether in any given case the fish he purchases is a fresh or a cold storage article. At the present time, in so far as I know, there are no national, state or municipal laws whereby this fact can be ascertained. Without raising the question of comparative value or palatability there is no doubt but what the consumer is entitled to know the character of the fish he purchases."

Big Frauds in Fish: Under this head the "National Food Magazine" of Chicago has published some remarks by G. J. L. Janes, which vividly depict the outrages perpetrated in the United States by cold-storage men.

"The legal regulations governing the sale of fish are so lax that we have decided to stop handling fresh fish altogether rather than suffer the unjust competition and be a party to so many deceptions on the public. A dealer can take any kind of frozen fish, thaw it out, and mark it strictly fresh-caught fish, and if he so desire, sell it as such. This is being done all along State Street in Chicago to-day. It is not only a fraud and cheat on the public, but it is dangerous. Fresh-caught halibut costs 12 cents a pound wholesale. There is 20 per cent. waste in it, because of the fins, skin, etc., and hence we have to add 20 per cent. to the cost in order to break even on it. Nevertheless certain stores are advertising strictly fresh-caught halibut at 10-1/2 cents a pound retail. Of course this is frozen halibut they are selling. That can be bought at 8 cents a pound wholesale. The same is true of other fishes, especially white fish. That costs 22 cents a pound when fresh. Certain stores advertise "fancy white-fish winter caught" at 10 cents retail. There is no mention of its being frozen or cold storage fish, and so the public is deceived. It is dangerous economy to buy cheap fish. No other food deteriorates so rapidly after it comes from the water. Especially is this true of white fish, which spoils quickest of all. Freezing breaks up the tissues, and when it once is thawed it decomposes with enormous rapidity."

As long as the American public patiently tolerates such impositions on purse and stomach it seems hardly worth while to discuss the more subtle gastronomic problems, such as the question put by Dr. Wiley: "Whether or not the flavor and character of the flesh are impaired by the suffocation process subsequent to the capture of the fish." Undoubtedly fish is best when killed the instant it leaves the water, and then at once eviscerated and cleaned.

When we have become sufficiently civilized to insist on such measures being taken, attention will be paid to the suggestions of the Danish fisheries agent, Captain A. Solling, communicated to the "Daily Consular and Trade Reports" by Consul-General Wallace C. Bond, of Copenhagen. Captain Solling recommends that the fish, at least the better kinds, be cut while yet alive, promptly cleaned, and then wrapped in specially prepared paper which would prevent its coming in direct contact with the chopped ice. The objection may be raised, he admits, that this way of treating fish is too particular and takes too long; but the increased work and the increased expense will, he feels sure, soon be offset by the higher price secured on account of the better preservation of the fish; and "the intelligent fishmonger will soon discover the advantage of handling fish, which if not sold to-day, may be sold in 3, 4 or 8 days and still be equally good and fresh."

Progress along this line of gastronomic civilization will be a boon to the American farmer. There are tens of thousands of lakelets and ponds in our country, most of which might be used for fish culture. They will be so used by farmers as soon as we have learned the lesson the German ponds teach, and stopped buying the flavorless frozen stuff sold in our fish markets.

In Switzerland there has been formed a Fish-Growers' Association for the enlightenment of the land owners. Its motto is: "Every Farmer a Fish Pond Owner." Attention is called to the demonstrated fact that an acre of fish pond is more profitable than the same area devoted to the ordinary farm crops.

GAME AND GEESE.

The same care that the Germans show in the growing and transportation of fish is also manifested in their treatment of game.

During the automobile tour across Germany to which reference has been made, we purposely stopped, as a rule, at the smaller towns and taverns; but everywhere, without advance notice, we had excellent food. I had previously come to the conclusion that the average German restaurant serves nearly if not quite as good meals as the average French restaurant, at least in the provinces.

It was game season, and everywhere we were able to get partridges—plump young birds, juicy, and cooked scientifically, at about one-third American prices.

Hares and rabbits are a German specialty, and Hasenrücken is a very different thing from the undrawn rabbit abomination sold in American markets. The Californian cottontail is the nearest approach we have to the Teutonic hare. I shot dozens of them in Los Angeles County one winter and found them as tender and almost as well flavored as young chicken.

Venison is seldom to be had in our markets and usually only at fancy prices. In German restaurants it is as cheap as beef; sometimes cheaper. The back—Rehrücken—costs a trifle more, and is better than the rest of the meat, which is usually served roasted or as a ragout; but all is good. It seems to be a specialty of the Rhine boats.

Other game also is abundant and cheap, for the simple reason that the greed for sport is regulated by severe laws which are strictly enforced. We, too, now have game laws in most of our States, but they are seldom enforced effectively and most of them, moreover, were made on the principle of locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen.

Africa is at present the scene of ruthless slaughter of game, big and little, but at its worst it is not often so reckless, extravagant, and wasteful as the hideous carnage of which Americans have been guilty. Time was when wild pigeons blackened the sky and were slain by the hundreds with poles. Wild turkeys inhabited every thicket and could be bought for twenty cents apiece—they are twice as much a pound now, though seldom on sale at any price. Ruffled grouse were so plentiful that a bounty was offered for their extermination, their abundance being a menace to the crops. To-day you pay $5 for a brace of these birds. Deer, until lately, were killed for their haunches, the rest being left for beasts of prey; while millions of buffaloes were slaughtered for their tongues and hides—often for the tongues alone.

The Audubon Society, aided by generous donors and, to some extent, by the Government, has done royal service to protect game and song birds. The intelligent sporting clubs are lending useful aid, while the Yellowstone Park has been set aside as a great game preserve. Unfortunately, although the animals are safe from guns while they remain in the Park, thousands are slaughtered in winter when hunger drives them outside its limits, while many thousands more perish because no provision is made for feeding these poor wards of the Government.

A pathetic picture is printed in Dillon Wallace's splendid book, "Saddle and Camp in the Rockies." It tells a sad story. One settler told him there had been times when he could walk half a mile on the bodies of dead elk. Instead of helping its wards, the Federal Government actually gave permits to sheepmen which would have devastated the last refuge of the elks. The settlers saved the situation by holding an indignation meeting. "The sheepmen saw the point—and the rope—and discreetly departed."

In Germany the game animals are cared for in winter. While visiting Mark Twain's daughter and her husband, the eminent pianist-composer, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, in the Bavarian Highlands, in the summer of 1912, we met at their house a young tenor who was also a mighty hunter before the Lord. He gave us an account of the game laws and the general arrangements for preservation and multiplication, which convinced us that if we are to retrieve the errors and crimes of our predecessors, East and West, we must follow the example of Germany.

Pointing to the meadows round about, he explained that the hay made on these is preserved and fed to the deer in winter. Often one may see as many as a hundred at a time assembling for their daily meal, and people come all the way from Munich to see them at it.

As it had been found that too much hay or other dry food was not good for the deer, the owners of private game preserves, of which there are many, have taken to planting beets, turnips or potatoes, which remain in the ground till the animals dig them out from under the snow and soil.

A suggestive detail regarding the protection of birds is that thickets, bristling with thorns, are specially provided to help them during nesting time and when pursued by birds or beasts of prey. The clearing away of thickets in America has done almost as much as actual slaughter in exterminating birds. Lovers of song birds as well as epicures who like game for a change would unite in blessing our railway companies if they followed the German example of planting shrubs as homes for birds all along the railroad embankments.

While the Germans are fond of partridges and other game birds, their favorite food, so far as the feathered tribes are concerned, is the domesticated goose. In the markets, especially of the northern cities, more geese are exposed for sale than all other kinds of poultry combined, and in restaurants Gänsebraten is seldom absent from the menu. The French rather look down on roast goose, but that is because their roast goose is not so juicy and tender as the Prussian, whether owing to a difference in variety or rearing I cannot tell.

The Germans are most painstaking in the growing and the proper feeding of this bird. They know that corn fodder yields the largest amount of fat—and goose fat is much in demand—while the finest Flavor is secured by feeding barley malt.

The best goose, like the best beef, is grown where there is abundant pasturage. There is less of this in the Empire than there used to be, hence large numbers of geese are imported. From six to seven millions of them are annually brought across the border, mostly from Russia. Every day, a special "goose train," consisting of from fifteen to forty cars crosses the Russian frontier bound for Berlin or Strassburg.

Deer in German Forest

Strassburg is one of the many cities that were made famous by a special food. Goose liver was already relished as a great delicacy by the ancient Romans; Horace refers in one of his poems to the joys of eating the liver of the white goose fattened with juicy figs. In Strassburg, unfortunately, the geese are not fattened with figs, but are locked up in cages and stuffed for a number of days with shelled corn or noodles till their overworked livers become abnormally enlarged, after which they are made into what is known the world over as pâté de foie gras. This mixture of liver, meat and truffles is now prepared on a large scale also in Toulouse and other French places, but the headquarters for it is Alsace, where it is made in many places, though it is said that there is a growing opposition to it on account of the cruelty inseparable from the stuffing process. It's a great pity that such cruelty should be necessary, for not a few epicures feel like the Rev. Sydney Smith, who exclaimed: "My idea of heaven is eating foies gras to the sound of trumpets."

IN A BERLIN MARKET.

That the goose is the food of the day and every day is made manifest in the markets of Berlin, of which there are more than a dozen. All the poultry stalls are filled with them, so much so that other meat, even the ever-present veal, shrinks timidly into the background.

Wherever one stops, the displays are most attractive. There are unfrozen, fresh-killed meats of all kinds, tempting even the sightseer who has no intention of buying. Autumn flowers, and large boxes of deep red Preisselbeeren—a berry very similar to the mountain cranberry found on Maine's highest peaks, and growing everywhere in Germany (it ought to be acclimated in our fields)—give rich autumnal hues to many of the market stalls, while the fragrance of Gravenstein apples fills the air near the fruit stalls.

As in Paris, the sea fish are fresh-caught, with ice about them, but never frozen, while fresh-water fish are carried to the buyer's house in a tank and selected alive. The German krebs, or crawfish, is almost as much in evidence as the French écrevisses, and like these, it is kept in tanks of cold, running water, except for a few boxfuls, the probable supply of the day, which are sorted out by sizes for convenience. "Solo-krebs" is one of the items on a Berlin menu, and means one huge fellow, almost as big as a small lobster.

This Berlin market, unlike the Halles of Paris, does not encroach on and beautify the surrounding streets. It is orderly and law-abiding, and fills up its allotted space of two covered squares to the limit, but with no overflow. However, the shops nearby are generally for foods, with appetizing windows of sausages, smoked meats and fish, or cheeses.

An oddity of this market is that the upper floor space is divided about equally between fruits and household furnishings. There is an exhaustless supply of step-ladders, and besides these, every need of the kitchen is provided for.

Meat prices, which soar in Berlin, are much lower in the big markets than elsewhere.

Any one coming directly from the United States, where the veal is seldom so good as the lamb or the beef is sure to wonder at the abundance of calves in German markets. After sampling the veal a few times, one ceases to wonder why the Germans are so addicted to it, and the Austrians no less so. The French know how to cook veal, and a good cutlet à la Milanaise is not to be despised, but there is nothing in its way as good as the Wiener Schnitzel or the German Kalbsbraten.

The excellence of German veal is due largely to the strict exclusion from the markets by the meat inspectors of all animals that are too young or too old, the Flavor as well as the tenderness of the meat being largely dependent on the right age for slaughtering the calf. The calves are, moreover, milkfed and not brought up on "hay-tea."

VIENNA BREAD AND HUNGARIAN FLOUR.

While Parisian bread is as good as bread can be, it cannot be said that French bread, the country through, is so uniformly excellent as is German bread, throughout the two Empires. Not only in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and the other large cities is it almost invariably crisp and tasty, but it is so in the smaller towns and even the villages.

Ellwanger does not exaggerate when he says in regard to Germany that "from her inviting Bäckereis and Conditoreis floats an ambrosial fragrance that may not be equaled by the pâtisseries of Paris, the variety of her products being as great as their cheapness and wholesomeness. One is born a poet, saith the adage; it is equally true that the German is a born baker who has no superior in his sphere."

The Parisians, indeed, learned the secret of making perfect bread from the Austrians.

Bread was baked by Egyptians and Hebrews two thousand years before Christ; also by the Greeks, from whom the Italians learned the art of making it. There are records of Roman bakers who became so wealthy and famous that they were invested with the dignity of Senators, but there are reasons for believing that if any bakers of our time endeavored to sell the sour stuff these Romans made, they would be mobbed.

Eugen Baron Vaerst relates that a jury of French, English, and Italian epicures decided that the best pastry was made in Switzerland (Schweizerbäckerei has been famous for more than a century) and the best bread in Vienna. The Austrians may have got some hints from the Venetians, who made good bread and excellent biscotti. In consequence of that jury's decision, an enterprising baker set up a shop on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, and "the Parisians, proud to have all that was best in different countries taken to them for their verdict and approval, decided that this was the best bonne nouvelle that had ever been brought to them."

This baker soon became wealthy and so did others who followed his example. To this day pain viennois is in the best repute in Paris, and so is Viennese pastry.

Most juries of epicures would agree to-day that not only is Viennese bread perfect but that, next to Paris, the Austrian capital has the best restaurants, and the most savory domestic cooking in the world. Many of the foods served have local Flavors, not the least agreeable of which are those betraying the neighborhood of Hungary—the Gulyas, the Paprikahuhn, and other dishes reddened and made piquant with paprika, which must not be confounded with the much sharper variety of red pepper, cayenne, so dear to Spanish peoples of the old world and the new.

A specialty of the Austrian and South-German cuisine, the neglect of which elsewhere is incomprehensible, is the Mehlspeise, which ought to be adopted in England and America as an occasional substitute for puddings and pies. There is an endless variety of these Mehlspeisen, under the species Nudeln, Spatzen, Kipferl, Kuchen, Strudel, Nockerl, Flockerl, Knödel, Schmarren. Really, the Kaiserschmarren and the Apfelstrudel ought to be adopted as national American dishes by special act of Congress.

Flavorsome Hungarian flour (Mehl) is used in making these dishes (Speisen) and that is one of the reasons why they are so good. The Hungarian brand of flour is the best in the world, especially the highest grade, known as Auszugmehl. It has an amber tint known among bakers as the gelbliche Stich. On account of its agreeable Flavor, Hungarian flour is sent in large quantities to Germany, and some goes as far as Paris. Because of the freight expenses it is not usually sent north of Berlin. In that city the best bread is made of it, including the favorite Knüppel and the Milchbrode. Farther north, a mixture of German and American flour is used.

A few American grocers import Hungarian flour. The test of the best European product is that when the hand is laid on it, it flies up between the fingers. American flour packs. Mrs. Arpad Gerster (whose husband is a brother of the famous Hungarian prima donna, Etelka Gerster) gives me the very important information that our flour can be made almost equal to the foreign by drying it on a platter on top of the stove. Bread, cakes, noodles, etc., made with flour thus dried have the much-coveted European lightness.

The Germans know as well as the French that the crust is the sweetest and most digestible part of bread and that its Flavor depends on there being a maximum of crust with a minimum of crumb, quite as much as it does on the grade of flour used, and the method of making the dough and baking it. To ensure a maximum of crust, white bread is usually baked in the size of rolls, as Semmel, and in a great variety of other shapes, every region having its specialty.

While it is true that, as a German writer remarks, the eating of white bread is a mark of prosperity in his country, it must not be inferred that it is only the poorer classes who buy the cheaper Schwarzbrod, made of rye. On account of its agreeable flavor this "black-bread" appeals particularly to epicures, and the darkest variety of it, Pumpernickel, is called for by gourmets the world over as the best thing to eat with cheeses of the Limburger type. It is also used as an ingredient in various Mehlspeisen and crêmes. It is made of flour from which the bran has not been bolted.

Cereal perfumery is not a thing you can buy at an apothecary's. You get it by munching a piece of rye bread with fresh butter on it and consciously breathing out through the nose.

In France rye bread is almost unknown. In England attempts were made a few years ago to popularize it. Nature and other periodicals took up the matter, which had been brought to the fore during a political campaign where some of the speakers deplored the lot of the German laboring man for being obliged to eat rye bread. By way of reply, attention was called to the fact that the Kaiser himself always has rye bread on his table, and that in American cities, as in those of Germany, there is much demand for such bread in the wealthy quarters. Apparently the attempt to enrich the British menu with a cheap new delicacy failed, for trade reports of 1912 intimated that while there is at all times a demand for corn and oats on the Liverpool market, rye does not find sale there.

There are many other German bread and cake specialties that deserve to be introduced in other countries. Two of them are already known to epicures of many countries: the Lebkuchen, or honeycake, which made Nuremburg famous, and the lye-soaked, twisted, crisp Pretzel. This has a little salt strewn on the crust and the same is true of other kinds of small breads. Particularly good is the Mohnbrot, which is peppered with poppy seeds. Try it. Poppy seed is as good to eat as any nut that grows.

In these things the Germans show a good deal of imagination; but as for the anise-seeds so often mingled with the rye bread, I wish they would leave them to the imagination. The general use of them has probably done more than anything else to prevent the acceptance of German rye bread in foreign countries.

GERMAN MENUS ON SEA AND LAND.

The Germans claim that the custom of providing a written or printed menu, or Speisenkarte, originated in their country.

At a meeting of the Reichstag in Regensburg, in 1541, Count Hugo of Montfort noticed one day at a banquet that the host, Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig, had before him a Zettel, or slip of paper, which he glanced at now and then. Being questioned, the Duke replied that it was a list of the dishes that were to be served, made for him by the chef so that he might save his appetite for those which he liked best.

Whether true or not, the story gives the raison d'être for a menu at every table-d'hôte meal. It is related by Friedrich Baumann in his Meisterwerk der Speisen, a monumental work in two volumes, of over two thousand pages, to which brief reference has already been made. Baumann has been called the German Carême (who was "the Luther of the French cuisine"). To him cooking was not mere handwork; it was an art and a science; and in his work he not only enumerates and briefly describes the foods of all countries (for example, of fishes, and dishes made thereof, there are about twenty-five hundred!), but treats of everything pertaining to the growing, cooking, and serving of victuals with true German thoroughness and with hundreds of those footnotes which are accepted in that country as the best evidence of scholarship.

Of all the German cities none is visited by more American and English tourists than Munich; and few of these fail to go and see the Court Brewery, even though they may not wish to try the beer—the best in the world. You may eat at the Hofbräuhaus without drinking anything, though you will be stared at as a freak. There are several large dining-rooms and the bill of fare is large, varied, and thoroughly German. Look at the soups, for instance: bouillon with egg, bread soup, noodle soup with or without a large chunk of boiled chicken, which adds sixteen cents to the price, liver-noodle soup, and brain soup. All are nutritious and tasty and cost only four or five cents a big plate. The fishes offered on this particular day in September are carp, pike, sand-eel from the Danube, and perch-pike. These cost from about 27 to 32 cents a generous portion. Ochsenfleisch—boiled beef—is always in great demand and is usually juicy and well-flavored. Without vegetables it costs only 12 cents a plate. Five different cuts of veal open the list of roasts, and the same price is charged for them—17 cents—though in other restaurants the kidney piece often costs a few cents more. Pork is two cents and a half higher, while chicken, goose, and pigeon may rise to the dizzy heights of 32 cents a plate.

Among the day's ready dishes—Fertige Speisen—we note haunch of venison at 35 cents and leg of venison for five cents less. Half a partridge is listed at 24 cents, and the same charge is made for a quarter of a wild duck. There is of course a Sauerbraten—a sort of bœuf à la mode with a palatable sour sauce—and you may choose bœuf braisé, or Greek steak, or various mutton dishes, smoked meats, and so on, the prices for these being about 22 to 24 cents, including a vegetable: cabbage, potatoes, beans, or rice, noodles, dumplings (Bavarian liver-dumplings—Leberknödel—are fine!) or macaroni with minced ham, which ought to be on every table in every country at least two or three times a week.

The roasts and fries to order include, of course, the Wiener Schnitzel (savory when you have German or Austrian veal), the Paprikaschnitzel and various other cuts from the calf or the ox. Kompotts are in Germany served with roasts as regularly as salads are in France; they are stewed fruits—apples, pears, apricots, cherries, and berries among which the Preisselbeere is most Teutonic and most delicious.

The Mehlspeisen on this particular menu are fewer in number and less racy of the soil than those you would find on a Viennese bill of fare. Besides the international omelette and the Italian macaroni there is only the German pancake and the Windnudel. Among the vegetables and salads are listed, rather out of place, the Spätzl, a variety of the noodles which are the German version of the Italian macaroni and other pastes, and which only a German knows how to cook to perfection. A glance at the twenty-two varieties of cold meats and appetizers and the dozen varieties of cheese brings to mind the international aspect of German gastronomy.

In the more expensive restaurants of Munich and other German cities the French influence is more obvious. I chose the menu of the Hofbräuhaus because of its thoroughly bourgeois and German aspect.

The largest restaurants in the world are in Berlin; one of them seats four thousand people. In the bourgeois places the food is usually less savory than in similar establishments in South Germany, but there is a larger proportion of the high and highest class resorts, with viands and prices almost, if not quite, on a level with those of Paris and London, which it is the ambition and intention of the Berliners ultimately to surpass in these respects as well as in the splendors of their hotels.

Breakfast.

Fruit

Oranges, Bananas, Grape Fruit, Grapes

Preserves

Honey, Strawberry Marmalade, Jams, Quince Jelly

Sweet Pickel Peaches, Scotch Marmalade

Coffee, Tea, etc.

Coffee, Coffeeïneless Coffee H. A. G., Cocoa, Chocolate

Ceylon Tea, Mixed Tea, Milk and Cream

Bread

Rolls, Milk and Butter Toast, Toast plain

Various Kinds of Cakes and Crackers

Cereals

Milk Rice, Oatmeal, Hominy, Force, Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts

Eggs, Omelettes and Pancakes

Buckwheat, Hominy, Rice and Wheat Cakes,

Pancakes plain, with Apples or Cherries

Apricot or Currant Marmalade

Potato Pancakes,

Boiled Eggs, Poached Eggs, Baked Eggs

Fried Eggs plain, with Bacon or à la Tyrolienne

Scrambled Eggs plain, with Ham or à la Bavaroise

Omelette plain, aux fines Herbes or with Strawberries

Fish, Steaks, Chops etc.

Kippered Herrings, Haddock, Fish Croquettes, Sole, Salted Mackerels

Fillet Steak Westmoreland, Fillet of Veal Esterházy

Fillet Gulyàs with Mushrooms, German Beef Steak

Chicken Liver on the Spit with Piémontaise Rice

Calf's Liver with Apples and Onions, Fried Calf's Brains Sauce Rémoulade

Grill: Tenderloin Steak, Mutton Chops, Sirloinsteak, Lamb Kidneys,

English Ham, Frankfort Sausages

Potatoes

Boiled, Fried, Baked, Mashed Potatoes

Saratoga Chips, French Fried Potatoes, Lyonnaise Potatoes

Cold Dishes

Westphalian Ham, Smoked Bologna Sausages, Smoked Tongue

Potted Fieldfares with Truffles, Roast Beef, Chicken

Relishes

Eel in Jelly, Oil Sardines, Anchovies, Fillet of Herring in diverser Sauce

Cheese

Camembert, Herb, Imperial, Holland Cheese

Gabel-Frühstück—Luncheon

à la carte.

Vorspeisen

Salat de Boeuf ParisienneKüken-SalatGeräucherter AalRoyans à la BordelaiseHeringsfilet, RemouladensauceRollmopsAnchovis

Suppen

Hühner-Kraftbrühe in TassenSchottische GraupensuppeKartoffelsuppe mit Croutons

Fisch

Gerösteter Lachs, AnchovisbutterStreifbarsch, Sauce Pluche

Eierspeisen

Omelett mit SchnittlauchSpiegeleier OthelloVerlorene Eier Cardinal

Fleischspeisen und Geflügel

Küken in Curry und ReisKalbsleber mit Aepfeln und Zwiebeln KartoffelmusZungenragout Financière, FleuronsEntre-côtes à la MacédoineJungschweinskeule deutsche ArtRoastbeef au Jus

Bürgerliches Gericht

Klops à la Königsberg

Auf Bestellung (vom Grill 15 Min)

Hammelkoteletten, BeefsteakFiletsteak, Rumpsteak

Gemüse und Kartoffeln

BrechspargelPerlbohnenSpaghetti italienische ArtGekochter ReisFranzösische und deutsche BratkartoffelnKartoffelmus, Gebackene Kartoffeln

Salate

Kartoffelsalat, Achanaka-Salat

Kaltes Buffet

Lammrücken garniertGalantine von Poularde, Sauce CumberlandChaud-froid von Reh mit PilzenTournedos Jockey ArtJunge Ente in AspikGeräucherte ZungeGespicktes Kalbsfrikandeau, RoastbeefKaltes GeflügelGeräucherter und gekochter Schinken

Kompott und Süßspeisen

BirnenBlanc-manger mit FrchtenSchneebälle

Käse

Kräuter-, Schweizer-, Camembert-KäseFrucht      Kaffee

Hors d'Oeuvres

Salad de Boeuf ParisienneChicken SaladSmoked EelRoyans à la BordelaiseFillet of Herrings, Sauce RemouladeRolled Pickled HerringsAnchovies

Soups

Chicken Broth in CupScotch Barley SoupPotato Soup with Croutons

Fish

Broiled Salmon, Anchovy ButterStriped Bass, Sauce Pluche

Eggs

Omelet with ChiveFried Eggs OthelloPoached Eggs Cardinal

Entrées, Roasts and Poultry

Curried Chicken with RiceCalf's-liver with Apples and OnionsMashed PotatoesTongue Ragout Financière, FleuronsEntre-côtes à la MacédoineLeg of Pork, German StyleRoastbeef au Jus

Special Dish

Klops à la Koenigsberg

To Order (from the Grill 15 min.)

Mutton Chops, BeefsteakTenderloin Steak, Sirloin Steak

Vegetables and Potatoes

Cut AsparagusString BeansSpaghetti ItalienneBoiled RiceFrench and German fried PotatoesMashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes

Salads

Potato Salad, Salad Achanaka

Cold Cuts and Cold Dishes

Saddle of Lamb garnishedGalantine of Pullet, Sauce CumberlandChaud-froid of Venison, MushroomsTournedos à la JockeyDuckling in AspicSmoked TongueLarded Roast Veal, RoastbeefRoast ChickenSmoked and Boiled Ham

Compote and Desserts

PearsBlanc-manger with FruitsCream Puffs

Cheese

Herb, Swiss, Camembert CheeseFruit    Coffee

Carte du jour.

Hors d'Oeuvres:

Hors d'oeuvre VariéCaprice Sticks

Soups:

Consommé GrimaldiCream Soup à la d'OrléansFieldfare Soup Old Style

Fish:

Salmon Cutlets à la Count d'ArtoisSole MeunièreTurbot, Butter, Parsley

Entrées:

Fillet of Beef RenaissanceLamb Chops, Sauce PérigueuxStuffed Artichoke BottomsCroutons of Goose Liver Moderne (cold)Broiled Sweetbread, Green PeasEntrecôtes JardinièreLeg of Lamb, Larded, Brussels Sprouts

Grill: (15-30 min.):

Mixed Grill consisting of:Fillet Mignon, Lamb ChopsKidney, Sausage, TomatoTenderloin Steak, Entrecôte, Sirloin SteakLamb Chops, Mutton Chops

Ready Dishes:

Prague Ham à la Fitz James

Poultry:

Cherbourg PoulardePartridge

Vegetables:

Palm Marrow BordelaisePeas and Asparagus, Stew CornBoiled RiceFrench and German fried PotatoesMashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes

Compote:

Green Gages, Strawberries

Salads:

Lettuce SaladEndive Salad

Sweets:

Strawberry Ice, Whipped CreamPeaches à la CondéPraline Ice CreamIce NapolitainePastryCheese    Fruit    Coffee

A few Suggestions

I.

Hors d'oeuvre Varié

Cream Soup à la d'Orléans

Sole Meunière

Lamb Chops, Sauce Périgueux

Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms

Partridge

Compote    Salad

Strawberry Ice, Whipped Cream

II.

Fieldfare Soup Old Style

Salmon Cutlets à la Count d'Artois

Fillet of Beef Renaissance

Croutons of Goose Liver Moderne (cold)

Cherbourg Poularde

Compote    Salad

Palm Marrow Bordelaise

Peaches à la Condé

III. (Supper)

Caprice Sticks

Consommé Grimaldi

Turbot, Butter, Parsley

Leg of Lamb, Larded, Brussels Sprouts

Praline Ice Cream

Pastry

Another German ambition is to have the largest and most comfortable floating hotels. The newest Hamburg and Bremen steamers are indeed unsurpassed in any respect, and their cuisine is particularly good. The trans-Atlantic steamers have the great advantage of being able to buy in New York the best things American markets offer, and in the German ports not only the European delicatessen, but those which the sister boats bring from Oriental countries. I once gained eight pounds in as many days crossing the Big Pond on a German steamer; and can you wonder, in view of the abundance of the choicest viands offered as antidotes to the hunger-breeding sea air?

There are now on the largest steamers Ritz-Carlton restaurants for wealthy epicures; but you need not go to these for good food, as the sample menus for first-cabin breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, herewith reproduced, indicate. He must be hard to please, indeed, who cannot find something on such menus to tempt his appetite—unless he is sea-sick.

GERMAN, SWISS, AND DUTCH CHEESES.

German steamers and German restaurants nearly always offer a variety of French, Dutch, Italian, English, and Swiss cheeses in addition to those of their own country, among the best known of which are the Handkäse, the Liptauer, the Harz, the Kräuter and the Limburger, which, though it originated in Belgium, has come to be looked upon as a specifically German variety.

Germany is not, like Switzerland, Holland, and parts of France, a land of pastures green and studded with grazing cows. Pasturage throughout the Empire is usually so scarce—the land being needed for grain and other crops—that the cows, poor things, are kept in stables all the year round. It is therefore, not surprising that Germany is not among the great exporters of cheeses, most of the many domestic varieties, some of which are excellent, being consumed at home.

Very different is the situation in Switzerland, where cheese-making is one of the principal industries, the value of the exports exceeding $12,000,000 a year, nearly one quarter of which, in 1911, was sent to the United States. So good is the Flavor of Schweizerkäse that even France, in that year, took $2,688,539 worth of it, while Germany took $1,888,257 worth.

Nearly all the cheese which Switzerland exports is of the hard Emmenthaler type, put up in the huge cakes familiar to us all. It is practically the same as the French Gruyère. Not all Emmenthaler comes from the Emmenthal, the valley where the pasturage is particularly abundant and juicy.

The best flavored Swiss cheese is that which is made in summer, when the cows roam the mountain sides, going up higher and higher as the season advances and the snow melts, till they reach the slopes where even at the end of August the soil is still moist and the herbage two or three feet tall. This succulent food, consisting largely of lovely Alpine flowers, they industriously condense into fragrant cream, butter, and cheese.

When we speak of the Alps we mean snow mountains, particularly those of Switzerland. The Swiss themselves, however, when they refer to the Alps, mean the green pastures on the mountain sides on which the cows gather sustenance and wealth for them.

On one of these Alps, above Mürren, I once accosted a peasant who gave me information which confirmed my belief that the much-liked Flavor of Swiss cheese is due not alone to the succulent Alpine forage, but also, in great part, to the way the best of it is made—with all the cream left in the milk.

This peasant was himself a cheesemaker, and our conversation took place within sight of his cowsheds. He was surprised when I asked him if he ever used sour cream to make butter. He had never dreamt of such a thing. Usually he churned it in the evening, using the cream that had risen on the morning of the same day. At the latest the churning was done the next morning before the cream could possibly sour in that climate. A sour "starter," such as is nearly always added to cream in America before it is churned, he had never heard of; the very idea amazed him. And Swiss butter is nearly always good, while American butter is usually bad.

Questioned in regard to cheese, he said they made two grades of it, the Fettkäse, which contains all the cream, and the Magerkäse, made of skim milk. For the latter kind, he said, he had no use, because it was comparatively tasteless. It is made in considerable quantities, however, for the poor, of milk from which the cream has been taken for butter-making or for the hotel tables.

Cheese-making is much more of a fine art than most of us imagine. The utmost skill and care must be used to exclude undesirable flavors in the air due to uncleanly surroundings, since cheese absorbs these as readily as butter does. The season of the year and the feed must always be considered. Thus, in regard to the highly prized English Stilton we read that the finest variety "is principally made between March and September and solely from the milk of cows fed on natural pasture"; and that "the use of artificial food for the cows is at once detected in a change for the worse in the character of the cheese"—that is, its flavor.

Upon good feeding depends the production of fat in milk, and milk fat, alias cream, is a great source of Flavor. The best kinds of most of the leading cheeses are made of whole milk—milk with none of the cream taken out. Some kinds, like cottage cheese, are made of skim milk yet how the addition of cream improves their Flavor! Camembert, of course, is made of whole milk, and in the manufacture of some kinds, including Stilton, extra cream is sometimes added.

Much spurious stuff is palmed off on unwary buyers as whole milk or cream cheese. The dealers who do this, think themselves "smart," but in the end they harm their business. The excellent little book on "Cheese and Cheese Making," by Long and Benson (London: Chapman and Hall, 1896) begins with these instructive words:

"Professor Henry, of the Wisconsin Agricultural College, recently stated that the loss of the American cheese trade with great Britain was owing to the fact that his countrymen did not make the best article, and that in many cases imitation cheese was produced for the sake of a possible temporary profit but to the ultimate loss of all concerned. Whatever may be the immediate gain effected by the addition of foreign fat to milk, or by the removal of a portion of the cream it contains, the permanent value of the cheese industry to the producer is maintained only by the manufacture of the best and of its production in the largest possible quantity."

The italics are mine. They emphasize what is one of the most regrettable aspects of the situation in America—the deplorable and at the same time foolish disposition to make an immediate extra profit by unloading on purchasers inferior cheeses and other foods in the belief that the consumers are too ignorant or indifferent to know or care what they get.

From personal experience I can relate a detail of New York market history which vividly illustrates the folly of this attitude.

For several years I was able to buy the best Edam cheeses made in Holland—full-cream and therefore full-flavored. One autumn, on returning to the city, I tried in vain to get this same brand at the places where it had been on sale. I sampled the substitutes but was not satisfied with their Flavor. Having found out through a grocer the name of the importer of that brand, I called on him and asked why he no longer had it on his list. He had the effrontery to inform me that it was because he had had so many complaints that that brand did not keep well—that it "dried out." I told him that my own experience had been just the reverse, and that, as a matter of course, the more cream-fat there was in a cheese the more slowly it would dry out. But he stuck to his story.

In a confidential talk with a grocer I then ascertained what I had suspected. Dealers in cheap Edams, made of skimmed milk, had crowded out the maker of the creamy Edam who, of course, could not make so low a price to the wholesale dealers as they did. "Why not import several brands and charge according to their value and Flavor?" I asked, adding that many persons surely would gladly pay extra for the better grades. But that argument, too, was unavailing. The "smart" dealers did not wish to offer several grades; they wanted to charge the highest price for the lowest grade. And now note the consequences.

In one large market which I often passed there was at that time a large show case containing dozens of the familiar red "cannon balls"; but they were no longer of the full-cream brand the lively demand for which had won them the most prominent place in that glass case. The new brand bore a label on which was printed "Made of Skimmed Milk"; and this same brand seemed to be almost exclusively on sale all over town.

There was nothing dishonest about this procedure. Dealers have the right to sell any variety they choose, and this brand, being clearly marked, did not pretend to be what it was not. It evidently came from Holland, and it was as good a cheese as can be made of skimmed milk.

The importers and dealers evidently believed that the consumers were too ignorant or indifferent to care whether or not the cheese they bought had the rich creamy Flavor. At first I feared they might be right in this surmise, but ere long I found that I was by no means the only person who had stopped buying Edam because the best brand was no longer kept on sale in the American metropolis. The number of red balls in that show case gradually diminished and finally disappeared altogether.

The Dutch Government has given much attention to the question of cream in cheese, and no wonder, for the annual production of cheese in Holland amounts to at least 175,000,000 pounds, of which two-thirds are exported. The Minister of Agriculture has authorized the use of labels guaranteeing purity and quality. The Government control stamp "can be used only on cheese made of unskimmed milk and containing 45 per cent. of fats," writes Consul Frank W. Mahin from Amsterdam. "It is the special intention to make the full-fat product more profitable by marking it, which at the same time will promote the manufacture of the cheese of superior qualities."

In another contribution on this subject to the "Consular and Trade Reports" (April, 1911) Mr. Mahin provides information which buyers of Edam or Gouda will do well to bear in mind:

"A meeting of the North Holland Cheese Control Station, attended by a representative of the Government, was recently held at Hoorn, at which it was decided to divide marked cheese into two classes: (1) Cheese of Edam shape, with fatty component in the dry material of at least 40 per cent., to be marked 40+, in a hexagon; (2) full fat cheese, of different shapes, with a fatty substance in the dry material of at least 45 per cent., to be marked Rijkscontrole (Government control).

"It was stated at the meeting that the average proportion of fat in the cheese made in 1910 by factories was 44.8 per cent. and by farmers 47.5 per cent., being one per cent. higher than in 1909. The quantity of marked cheese sold in 1910 was 45 per cent. greater than in 1909, and the demand from dealers therefore has so much increased that there is now a shortage."

Evidently, dealers are not everywhere as short-sighted as were those of New York. However, in the autumn of 1912 I noticed, among these, signs of almost human intelligence. Before the end of 1912 I saw in some stores Dutch cheeses labeled "Above 40% butter-fat in total solids." By and by we may perhaps be permitted to spend our money even for the kind made by the farmers and containing 47.5 per cent. of cream fat.

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain.

Finck, Henry Theophilus. 2021. Food and Flavor: A Gastronomic Guide to Health and Good Living). Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61719/61719-h/61719-h.htm#IX

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.