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.