GERMAN DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5686, 3 October 1896, Page 3

GERMAN DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

; [Pall Mall Gazette.) Someone has called the French a nation of cooks. One might well designate their Teutonic neighbours a nation of housekeepers. The Gorman good wife, bettor, perhaps, than she of any other nationality, better even, perhaps, -than her cousin over here, understands how to apply the principles of domestic economy. Why should Aye begrudge the praise ? It is notorious that the German middle-classes think, in their turn, that there exists no institution so admirable as that of the happy English home, the farm-house, the suburban villa. Surely, then, we can gracefully^ yield a point' or two in this matter of housekeeping. In.doing so we only follow the example of the Americans, for in America the... German cook is never without a situation. Instance her economy as displayed in the cooking of. vegetables, the branch in which she excels. Any preparation in vegetables is : known in Germany as "gemuse." Take asparagus. We throw away the hard white . stalk, and eat only the soft green parts. Your German carefully, scrapes, off the stringy fibres of tho former, then chops it into short lengths and serves in a delicate white sauce. Or, again, consider the ordinary Trench bean, which is used not only as we use it, but also sliced and served as a separate dish covered by a rich brown gravy. There, as here, potatoes are ' steamed, mashed, mixed with milk, mado.into small sausage-shaped rolls, and browiied in • a frying-pan. Tho last is the "potato-mideln." In England the hotbaked potato man is an institution. In Germany tho niideln-potatoe man is just such another. Meat-joints, which, in England, are grand opportunities for waste, are never seen in the Fatherland. There the housewife never bakes nor roasts a piece of meat with a bone in it. Their beasts are cut up differently to our.3. Surplus fat a German cook will scrupulously clean away, using it afterwards in the place of lard, dripping, or butter. The latter, by the way, is used very sparingly and rarely or never with bread. Strictly speaking, their bread does not require much more than appetite to make it palatable. It has so many varieties. Take a few of them. There is rye or black bread, which your German peasant eats with his cheese and sausage; There are milk rolls to accompany coffee. There are varieties of sweetened milk loaves, brown-sugared on the top. These they eat with their tea. Then there is the famous "long twist," covered with salt and caraway seeds, used generally with soup, and sometimes by itself as an appetiser. One cannot help thinking regretfully of our own poolwoman who goes out to buy a sour loaf, and makes a comparatively heavy expenditure upon butter, wherewith to cover and make it edible. Soups there are treated in a difforent way to what they are in English kitchens. A German cook does not .colour her soup, nor does she serve it in a tureen. Instead a cup for each individual is provided. Sometimes, if the house is well-to-do, the yolk of an egg and a few drops of lemon . juice are added, to give a savour and a , strength to a cup of boiling soup. But it is in its treatment of "scraps" that German domestic economy is best displayed. Some of the famous national dishes are nought but scraps, skilfully welded together so as to make a wholesome !■ and pleasant whole. >. Take -the Bavarian " klosse." It is meat chopped fine and i mixed with bread or with meal, kneaded , together, formed by the hand into fairsized balls, and dropped into boiling water. .Season well with herbs and whole i pepper-corns, and you have a dish on which Franconian peasants are almost i content to live. A piece of liver, which in the frying-pan would be frizzled up to nothing, makes an admirable " klosse." As a further instance of scrap dishes, here is a recipe for Italian salad, made in Germany. Take two or three apples, pool and slice them. Add potato, beetroot, any stray scraps of cold beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or pork, a small portion of onion, a ■ spoonful of capers, a little oil and vinegar. There is your salad. Improve it, if you , will', by the addition of a pickled gherkin or a sardine. Ox-head, which we make into brawn, is, in Germany, converted into both brawn and brawn salad. There are plenty i of German factories which turn out this salad in small tubs and sell it as "oclien- •■' maul.". - To sauerkraut, English people, for the most part; have an antipathy; Such a sen- '< timent is intelligible.even as worildbethe like felt' by a foreigner towards " bubble i and squeak." Sauerkraut is «ssentially a " scrap " dainty; consisting, as it does, of - cabbage that has been barrelled, treated in a special way, and boiled with any pieces i of porkfat until it be quite tender. Vinegar • and caraway seeds complete the curious ' dish. • • Now, what is the practical upshot of this • German domestic economy? It is as fol- . lows: — Take the case of an average • middle-clas3 housewife, say, in Munich. l For a sum equal to £2 she will find food i for four persons for a week. Here is a day's menu. At eight o'clock in the morni ing they will have coffee and milk rolls, At eleven o'clock will be served slices of ; cold sausage, accompanied by rye bread, , and a single glass of .wine for each person. • Half an hour after noon they are sumi moned to a feast of soup, meat, gemuse . or salad, cheese, and beer. This meal , must sustain them for some hours,. for the • next does riot arrive' till seven or eight : o'clock in the evening. Then it is a repetii tion of the mid-day repast with the addii tion of a course of sweets, our omelette, &c. One may here mention a delightful ■ preparation of veal cutlets known as •' Wiener3clmifczel." ' These are baked with i bread crumbs and eggs, and served garnished with anchovies, caper sauce, olives ,

and lemon. A " confiture " is eaten with them. It is worthy of remark, with reference to the cookery lectures now . instituted throughout London, that .in Germany middle-class girls and even "high society" people are in the habit of taking lessons in the art at large hotels. A course of instruction can be procured for as little as .£2.