GERMANY’S SUNDAY MEAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1934, Page 4

GERMANY’S SUNDAY MEAL

“ONE-DISH DINNER” DECREE. Following closely upon the lines laid down last year in Germany to assist the poor and needy during the winter, there has been a tightening up of restrictions upon hotels and restaurants which vied with one another to provide the most luxurious hot-pot or “one-dish dinner” imposed by order upon the whole population during one Sunday in the month. The Government decreed the menu for a, really simple meal, and permitted the choice of three alternatives on Sunday, October 14, which was the first of these self-denial days. Only a thick pea-soup, or rather, pease-por-ridgo with pigs’ trotters or pigs’ ears, thick vermicelli cooked with beef, or a hot-pot of vegetables cooked with beef and rice or potatoes could be offered, and the “poulet casserole” in many varieties with asparagus or mushrooms was taboo.

Private households were allowed to do as they liked, and the boiled fowl, which the French king of long ago desired for every citizen, will continue to be the stand-by of the better situated. Everything saved upon the dinner must be given to the collectors, who como round between 12 and 2, when the bulk of tho nation may be expected to be dining. The equivalent of sixpence a head is what (he Government expected, so that restaurant-keepers who tried to attract custom by their special hot-pot delicacies would not be the losers in so far as they catered for the middle classes. Since the average German household does not indulge in such good beef-steaks and roast beef as the English home of the same, class during the week, the “boiled’’ dinner on a Sunday entails a very real sacrifice to tho "; vho look forward during the v, hole week to a respite from meal and vegetables cooked in the same saucepan.