get as
much as she wanted for three-halfpence. On Tuesday they get back to
the goose, and have a hash of the wings, neck, and liver with
potatoes. For supper, rice cooked with milk and cinnamon. Germans use
cinnamon rather as the Spaniards use garlic. They seem to think it
improves everything, and they eat quantities of milky rice strewn with
it. On Wednesday my family has soup for dinner, a solid soup made of
goose, rice, and a pennyworth of carrots. For supper there is sausage,
bread, and beer. By the way, this official is not really
representative, for he spends nothing on tobacco, and only a penny
every other day on beer. He cannot have been a Bavarian. His wife
gives him cod with mustard sauce on Thursday, Sauerkraut and shin of
beef on Friday, and on Saturday lentil soup with sausages, an
excellent dish when properly cooked for those who want solid
nourishing food. On the following Sunday 3 pounds of beef appears, and
potato dumplings with stewed fruit, another good German mixture if the
dumplings are as light as they should be. The husband has them warmed
up for supper next day. One day he has bacon and vegetables for
dinner, and another day only apple sauce and pancakes, but at every
midday meal throughout the fortnight he has carefully planned food on
which his wife spends considerable time and trouble. He never comes
home from his work on a winter's day to have a mutton bone and watery
potatoes set before him. In summer the bill of fare provides soups
made with wine, milk, or cider; sometimes there are curds for supper,
and if they have a chicken, rice and stewed fruit are eaten with it.
But a chicken only costs this _Hausfrau_ 1 mark 20 pf., so it must
have been a small one. I have often bought pigeons for 25 pf. apiece
in Germany, and stuffed in the Bavarian way with egg and bread crumbs
they are good eating. Fruit is extremely cheap and plentiful in many
parts of Germany, but not everywhere. We have Heine's word for it that
the plums grown by the wayside between Jena and Weimar are good, for
most of us know his story of his first interview with Goethe; how he
had looked forward to the meeting with ecstasy and reflection, and how
when he was face to face with the great man all he found to say was a
word in praise of the plums he had eaten as he walked. In the
fruit-growing districts most of the roads are set with an avenue of
fruit trees, and so law-abiding are the boys of Germany, and so
plentiful is fruit