THE FOOD IN GERMANY.
In Germany I sometimes had to go to three or four different stores before I could get a spool of silk thread. Leather is so expensive that only the upper-class burgher will be able to have real leather shoes this winter; and starch is twenty marks a pound. But after all, no German will go to work with an empty dinner pail.
The German Food Commission is the most uncanny thing in all the world. Like magic it produces a substitute for any article that is scarce, it has everything figured out so that provisioning shall be divided proportionately each week, and just what each person shall receive, for everybody does not receive the same amount of food in Germany. For instance, a man or woman who does manual labor gets more bread than a man or woman who works in an office; people over sixty years get more cereals, and sick people get more butter and eggs. These people get what they call Zusatz cards, besides their regular cards.
Every one in Germany is getting thin, and the German dieting system proves that much worn-out statement that "we eat too much," for nine out of every ten Germans have never been so well in their lives as they have been since the cards have been introduced. You feel spry, active and energetic, and the annoyance is mental rather than physical, for one is constantly thinking of things to eat.
Woman Selling Ices.
The ones that are really hurt by the blockade are the growing children, and the thing that they lack and long for is sweets. Before the war, one never realized what an important role candy played in the game of life. The food commission recognizes this, and very often chocolate and puddings are given on the cards of children under sixteen years of age.
While food prices have been soaring all over the world, prices in Germany are almost down to normal level, for anything that you buy on the cards is extremely cheap, and everything that is any good is sold on the cards. Everything that is sold ohne Karte, or without a card, is either not good or so expensive that the ordinary person cannot afford to buy.
When I first came to Germany in October, 1915, there was only one card, and that was the bread card. This card was divided off in sections with the numbers 25, 50 and 100 grams. At that time the whole card was 2100 grams for each person each week. Later it was reduced to 1900 grams, and on the first of May, 1917, to 1600 grams. This last reduction was a courageous thing for the bread commission to do at this time—one of the worst months of the year before the green vegetables come in—and in Berlin a couple of thousand workers from a factory gathered on Unter den Linden. They stayed two hours, broke two windows, and then went home pacified at a pound of meat a week more and more wages.
On the bread card it takes a 50 gram section to buy a good-sized roll, a whole card to buy a big loaf of black bread, and half a card to buy a small loaf of bread. After the bread card was reduced no buns were allowed to be made in Berlin, although in the other cities they have them. Instead, they had what they called white bread, but it was almost as black as the black bread, and when buying one had to ask, "Is this white or black bread?" I thought that the bread was very good, and it was of a much superior quality to what I got in Sweden where the bread card is of a less number of grams than in Germany. At the bottom of the German bread card is the flour ticket, and it allows one the choice of either 250 grams of flour or 400 grams of bread. I came out very well on my bread card, for even when I lived in a boarding-house I kept my card myself and I took my bread to the table with me. When people are invited to a meal they always take their bread and butter with them.
A Store in Charlottenburg, a Suburb of Berlin.
After the bread card the next food restriction was the two meatless and fatless days a week. On Tuesday and Friday no butcher was allowed to sell meat, and no restaurants or boarding-houses were allowed to serve meat. Monday and Thursday were the fatless days. The butchers were not allowed to sell fat, and the restaurants were not allowed to cook anything in grease. On Wednesday no pork was allowed to be sold.
Until after Christmas there were no other cards, but along in December the butter began to be scarce, and the stores would sell only a half pound to each person, and the people had to stand in line to get that half pound. These butter lines were controlled by the police, and it was no joke standing out in the cold to get a half pound of butter. But after Christmas came in rapid succession the butter card, the meat card, the milk card, the egg card, the soap card and the grocery card. These cards have regulated everything and have stopped the standing in line for articles.
At first the butter card called for half a pound of butter each week, but now it varies. Then it wasn't a separate card, but the center of the bread card was stamped for butter. Now each person gets either 60 grams of butter and 30 grams of margarine, or 80 grams of butter. You must buy your butter in a certain shop where you are registered and you can buy no place else. This is also true of sugar, meat, eggs and potatoes.
At first the meat card was only for home buyers, and the restaurants could serve as much meat as they liked, but soon it was seen that this was not fair to the people who eat at home. A card was issued that was divided off into little sections, so that the meat could be bought all at once or at different times. On the first of May, 1917, the meat card was increased by one-half, and every one is getting 750 grams of meat instead of 500 grams. Here the food commission made a mistake: they should have given out more meat in the cold months and have kept more flour for spring, but instead they increased the meat card in May and lowered the bread card.
One of the First Bread-Cards.
Another mistake that the food commission is making is allowing scandalous prices to be charged for fowls. Fish, chickens, geese and turkeys are bought without cards, but the prices are so high that few people can afford to buy them, and the birds are lying rotting in the store windows. Those birds are undrawn to make them weigh more. A medium-sized turkey or goose costs anywhere from sixty to one hundred marks, and a chicken runs about thirty marks.
The milk card was among the first cards, and only sick people and children get milk. The babies get the best milk and the older children get the next best, and after they are served the grown-ups get what is left. Adults have no milk card.
The sugar card varies, but one gets about 1¾ pounds of sugar each month. At preserving time people are given extra sugar and saccharine on the grocery card. The potato card varies. First it was seven pounds a week for each person, then it was reduced to five and then to three, and then it was raised to five again. This was the only card on which we sometimes did not get our allowance, and when there were not enough potatoes for the cards we could get extra bread on our potato card. At first some of the potato cards were red and others blue. The red cards were good on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and the blue ones were good on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Now no potatoes are allowed to be put into the bread.
The egg card came in the summer of 1916, and for a long time afterward it was possible to get all the eggs you wanted in restaurants without a card, but now one must have a card there as well, even if you order an omelet or an Eierkuchen, a pancake of which the Germans are very fond.
The Lebensmittel or "grocery" card is a very important card, and it is for buying such things as noodles, rice, barley, oatmeal, macaroni, white cornmeal and cheese. Then they have other cards for buying oil, saccharine, matches, sardines and smoked fish. Fresh fish is without a card. Each week the stores have numbers hanging up in their windows telling what can be bought that week, like "Rice on Number 13" or a "Pudding on Number 6." It is also printed in the newspapers and on the advertising posts, and sometimes you must be registered for the things and can buy them only in a certain store.
An Asparagus Huckster.
On the first soap cards, you could get every month a cake of toilet soap, a cake of laundry soap and some soap powder, but now one can get only 50 grams of either kind of soap and 250 grams of soap powder each month. Soap was one of the hardest things to get, and a cake of real soap sells from five to ten marks a cake. We never thought of taking a bath with soap but used it only on our faces. They have what they call "War Soap," and it can be used on the hands, but if it drops on your dress it leaves a white spot. If you want to give a real swell present to any one in Germany just send a cake of soap.
I always said that when coffee came to an end in Germany the Germans would be ready to make any kind of a peace. How could a German live without coffee? But last summer the coffee gave out and instead of complaining they took to drinking Kaffee-Ersatz, or "coffee substitute," with the same passion that they had lavished on real coffee. It is the most horrible stuff any one ever tasted with the exception of the substitute they have for tea, but the Germans say they like it. They have cards for Kaffee-Ersatz, and each person gets a half pound a month.
In the cafés in the summer of 1916 they were still serving real coffee with milk and sugar. Then suddenly the waiters commenced asking the patrons if they wished their coffee black or with cream, and then later they asked if you wanted the coffee sweet, and so they brought it, putting in sugar and milk themselves. A little later you did not get sugar but two little pieces of saccharine were served, and now they have a liquid sweet stuff that is used. They do not serve real coffee any more, but most restaurants still serve milk. The famous Kaffee mélange, or coffee with whipped cream, was forbidden at the beginning of the war.
When I left Germany they had no beer or tobacco cards, but there was talk about them. The beer restaurants receive only a certain amount of beer each day, and when this is gone the people must wait until the next day. Most beer halls serve only two glasses to each person. In Munich, because of the shortage of beer, some of the beer halls do not open until 6 o'clock at night, and at 4 o'clock the Müncheners gather at the doors with their mugs in their hands, patiently waiting. Sometimes they knock the mugs against the doors to a tune. Munich without beer is a very sad sight!
In Berlin some of the restaurants will serve beer only to people who can get chairs, but this does not faze the clever Berliners, and when they want their beer they bring camp stools with them, and then they are sure to have a seat. It is forbidden to make certain kinds of fine beers because they take too much malt and sugar. None of the beer is as good as in times of peace, but the Germans have forgotten the delicacies of the past, and they live in the food ideals of the present, and they smack their lips and say, "Isn't the beer fine to-night?"
From August 1916 until March 1917 it was forbidden to sell canned vegetables. They were being saved up for the spring months. The store windows were decorated with glass jars filled with the most wonderful kinds of peas, beans and asparagus. I always felt like smashing the window and stealing the stuff, but the Germans only looked at it admiringly and said, "It will be fine when the vegetables are freed."
Everything on the cards is at a set price, and the dealers don't dare to charge one cent more; even the prices of some things not on the cards are regulated. For instance, this spring no one could charge more than one mark a pound for cherries, and many of the cafés had to cut their cake prices. The police got after Kranzler, the famous cake house, and it had to reduce all its cakes to twenty pfennigs each.
When I was in Dresden in May, 1917, I ate elephant meat. An elephant got hurt in the Zoo and had to be killed. A beer restaurant bought his meat for 7000 marks, and it was served with sauerkraut to the public without a card at 1.30 marks. It tasted like the finest kind of chopped meat, and the restaurant was packed as long as the elephant lasted.
The food question is not the same all over Germany, and in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Leipsic they have less than in other places. Bavaria, the Rhine Country and East Prussia are far better off, and in some of the small villages they do not even have a bread card.
One of the hardest things to get is candy. In Berlin one can buy chocolate for sixteen marks a pound, but in Dresden it is very cheap because it is bought on the card. The candy is bought on the grocery card and one gets a half pound every two weeks. Candy lines are the only kind of lines that one sees now in Germany.
One card I forgot to mention is the coal card that will be issued for the coming winter. There is no scarcity of coal, but there are no people or cars for delivering. The people will be given three-fourths as much coal as they formerly consumed.
In times of peace eating in a German restaurant was notoriously cheap, and one could get a menu of soup, meat, potatoes and dessert for 90 pfennigs, and in Munich for 80 pfennigs. Now these same restaurants charge 1.75 marks, that is, twice as much; but even then food is cheaper than in America. Before the war some of the restaurants charged extra if you did not order anything to drink, but this is now done away with.
Anything can be bought without a card if you know how to do it. The government tries in every way to stop this selling, and although the fine is very heavy for selling ohne Karte, it goes on just the same. We always managed to get things without a card. Our janitress got coffee for us at 9.25 marks a pound, our vegetable woman gave us extra potatoes, and we could always get eggs. On the card an egg cost 30 pfennigs and without a card we paid anywhere from 50 pfennigs to 1 mark. The hardest thing to get without a card was sugar, for the food commission has an iron hand on the sugar, but we got it for 2.50 marks a pound. On the card it was 30 pfennigs a pound. It is said that butter could be bought for nine marks a pound without the card, but we never tried to get it.
The police sees that every one gets his share of food. If a woman holds a servant girl's rations from her, the girl can report it to the police and the woman is fined. In a boarding-house when the potatoes are passed around the landlady tells you whether you can take two or three potatoes, or one big potato and one small potato. The food conditions are not always comfortable, but the food commission has the things divided off so they will last for years.