COMMUNAL KITCHENS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9630, 10 April 1917, Page 7

COMMUNAL KITCHENS

“ONE-POT DISHES” ECONOMY IN COOKING AND DISTRIBUTION. r Tt is permissible to learn from the enemy," and considering that serious times are in front of ns, nc may with advantage study some of the measures of palliating the food scarcity which are in vogue, in Germany at the present day. One of the most interesting of these measures is the system of communal kitchens (writes a “Daily News” correspondent). The birth-place of this system is Hamburg, which was tho first city in Germany to feel the effect of British sea-power immediately after the outbreak of tho war. Soup kitchens were at once started as a form of uneml ployment relief. The example was soon followed in certain textile towns in Saxony, where the mills were placed on “short time” in consequence of a shortage of raw material. But though the first “people’s kitchens” were then but a form of unemployment relief, the growing scarcity and the rising prices of foodstuffs throughout the Empire made them, in the course of time, a model for similar institutions elsewhere, designed to meet the needs of the poorer population, henceforth unable to obtain the necessaries of life. . Popular kitchens were soon introduced in Berlin, Cologne, Frankfort, ana other cities in the form of travelling steaming cauldrons, from which the needy were able to obtain a quantity of “hot-pot”— generally a litre (lj pints)—for ten pfennige (slightly over one penny). COPYING THE MOREL. These travelling kitchens are still in operation, and distribute, for instance, in Berlin, on average 25,000 portions daily. But thev soon proved inadequate except for the very poor, and in July last year the first kitchens proper were introduced in Berlin after the original Hamburg model. .The kitchens have from the start been intended, first, to supply private households with plain and cheap but wholesome warm food, to be consumed at their respective homes; and, second, to supply the communal eating halls, where customers may consume the food at common tables. There are in Berlin no fewer than 62 such eating halls, stuated cither in the row of empty market halls or in the public gymnasia (Turnhallen). In most cases the food offered at these kitchens (for home consumption) consists of what tho Germans call a “one-pot dish”—that is, a litre of stew, consisting of meat, potatoes, green vegetables, etc.- The meat until recently in each portion amounted to between two and three ounces, and the potatoes and vegetables together to about one. pound. But the ingredients and quantities vary with tho state of the food market and the char* acter of the available vegetables. In Berlin the cost of a portion was at first uniformly 30 pfennigs, but at present it varies frqjn district to dis. trict, being 40- pfennigs in the betterclass districts and 30 pfennigs in tho poorer localities. In Hamburg the orice of a portion is 20 pfennigs, in Frankfurt 25 pfennigs,’ and in Stuttgart 30 pfennigs. These kitchens and dining-halls are' intended for the “masses,” but several municipalities have also gone in for catering for the poorer “middle classes” —clerks, professional people, students, etc. —and for the class of minor officials. In these restaurants the food is more varied, consisting of two and even three courses. Correspondingly the price is also higher, amounting to 60 and 70 pfennigs (7}d to 84d) for a “dinner, ticket.” •

The other kitchens have, after some fluctuations during the summer months, proved very popular. Everywhere their number is being multiplied, because the need for them is growing every dav. During lust December no fewer than 220,000 portions were sold in Berlin daily, and in Hamburg the number of portions sold averaged 165,000. In Leipzig the number of portions amounted in September to over 120,000 per day, and in the same month the average daily sale at the kitchens in Essen was 50C10 litres. In the Frankfort dining halls the daily attendance averaged in October nearly 14,000, and in Dusseldorf 17,000 persons. During the recent spell of cold these institutions were crowded to overflowing in Berlin and other cities, so that special measures had to be taken, to accommodate the people, and long queues were formed and kept for hours outside the dining ■ halls. ECONOMY THE MOTTO.

The institutions are run on the most economical principles imaginable, the kitchens, are provided with the most up-to-date cooking apparatus, and the service at the halls is performed to a large extent by voluntary labour. All wasted food is utilised as fodder 'for animals, and in Berlin, at least, potato peelings are used for the extraction of starch. Nevertheless, the losses,, are considerable, and every now and then special grants bays to be made to meet the debts. _ . In order to mitigate as much as possible losses through waste, many municipalities have introduced as obligatory a system of weekly dinner tickets, without which a customer cannot be served. In other cities dinners must be ordered and even paid for in advance on the previous day. In all cases, at least portions of the food tickets—especially the meat and potato coupons—have to be given up by the diners.