Perhaps different nations show their identity more in regard to preparing and eating food than in any other particular. The roots from which their different languages spring are more easily discerned by a philologist, than the common-sense basis which has suggested to each people its separate ideas on food and the preparation of it, is found out by any scientific chemist. I have been asked so often how the German markets and groceries compare with ours in variety and price, that it occurs to me to insert here an extract from an account book of my butcher and grocer of the preis courant for the years 1876, 1877, 1878, etc.:
| Price per pound. | |||
| Marks | Pf. | $ cts. | |
| Filet (Beef) | 1 | 20 | .28½ |
| Schmorfleisch (Stewing Meat) | 1 | 00 | .238 |
| Schabefleisch (Hashed Meat) | 90 | .21 | |
| Rindfleisch-Braten (Roast Beef) | 95 | .22½ | |
| Suppenfleisch (Meat for Soup) | 80 | .19 | |
| Kalbskeule (Veal) | 90 | .21 | |
| Kalbsbrust (Breast of Veal) | 75 | .18 | |
| Kalbs-Cotelette (Veal Cutlets) | 1 | 20 | .28½ |
| Hammelkeule (Shoulder of Mutton) | 80 | .19 | |
| Hammel-Cotelettes (Mutton Chops) | 75 | .18 | |
| Hammelbrust (Breast of Mutton) | 75 | .18 | |
| Schweinefleisch (Pork) | 90 | .21 | |
This was taken from a printed circular which every butcher of standing in a large German city presents to his customers once a year. The market list below is not complete, of course, but the great American turkey, it will be observed, brings a high price in Germany, as well as American hams.
| Marks | Pf. | $ cts. | |
| One Goose, | 3 | 00 | .71 |
| One Turkey, | 10 | 00 | 2.38 |
| Fish, | — | — | —— |
| Oysters, | — | — | —— |
| Ham per lb. | 1 | 80 | .428 |
| Corn Beef per lb. | 2 | 00 | .47½ |
| Cheese per lb. | 50 | .12 | |
| Butter per lb. | 1 | 80 | .428 |
| Lard per lb. | 90 | .21 | |
| Candles per lb. | 1 | 00 | .238 |
| Salt per lb. | 1 | 00 | .238 |
| Sugar per lb. | 60 | .14 | |
| Coffee per lb. | 1 | 50 | .35½ |
| Rice per lb. | 40 | .10 | |
| Chocolate per lb. 80 Pf. .19 cts. | |||
| One dozen Vienna rolls or cakes of bread for 30 days cost $2.50. | |||
Some of these prices will show that Germany is no longer a cheap country to live in, but the way in which articles of food are used and managed is where the French and Germans excel in economy. For instance, American housekeepers say in the winter and fall and spring, “It is so difficult to keep a good table, because there is so little variety in our markets.” And when they say this there will oftentimes be ten different meats and as many vegetables to be had. Now why does this complaint go on from year to year? Men and women are both to blame for it, and to show how they are is an easy task. If these ten meats and corresponding number of vegetable are judiciously managed, both health and economy can be forwarded. I will enumerate the meats and vegetables, that no housekeeper may say this is random talk: Beef (1), mutton (2), veal (3), pork (4), ham (5), corn beef (6), turkey (7), chicken (8), fish (9), game (10); kidneys, sweet-breads, and the like, not to be mentioned here, for fear our American taste will falter. Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, cabbage, beets, beans, squash, celery. Here you have ten without all the fine canned peas and tomatoes and corn on your shelves. Now, I am laughing because every delicately-minded woman in America exclaims at once, “But you have enumerated vegetables that our husbands and we ourselves would not touch!” Well, neither would a Frenchman, if they came on his table with the combinations of meat, etc., that you serve them with. A Frenchman knows (and the highest toned German has learned from him) that there are chemical affinities in food, and he selects his meat to correspond with his vegetable, or vice versa, as carefully as he would combine chemical properties in a laboratory; or as discreetly as he would choose guests for his drawing-room or dinner-table; or as daintily as his wife would select gloves to match her bonnet. Food assorted with bad taste and judgment on his table is as distasteful as a delicate watercolor framed in a moulding which belongs to a heavy old historical oil painting is to his eye. The subject may seem to many unworthy such attention. There are those who boast that “they do not care what they eat, so they get enough! or how the table is set, or whether everything comes on at once or not!” Well, this is the way Frederick the Great’s father felt; the ruder and rougher, the better for his children; whether they took bread with a fork, or ate with their knives, or mixed cabbage and eggs, it didn’t matter to him, so the exchequer was sound. But what effect did all this boorish home-life have upon young Frederick? It made him eschew every German custom, every Teutonic idea, and give himself up entirely to the French, to be ruled by his French cooks, and dressed by French tailors, and entertained by French wits. Now the Germans have established their own reputation for combinations which they consider good, and it appears that the wife of our honored poet, who died as United States Minister in Berlin (a German woman by birth), is not ashamed to write on German cookery, although a woman of high and unquestioned literary attainments, who could help her husband in the arduous task of translating Faust. We Americans do not study this matter, or if we do, and make an effort to improve, it is simply an imitation, and a poor one at that, of some European ways. As health and happiness depend so much upon whether our dinner “sets well,” the knowledge of instituting such a mode of living as is best calculated to preserve health, is a most desirable acquisition. And if errors are committed in this respect, our injured system must suffer the bad consequences.
Now let us make a practical résumé of the subject: There are ten meats and ten vegetables in the market and twenty-one meals in the week to provide for. Let us first think of Sunday, for every man wants a good dinner on Sunday, especially if he has done his duty at church, and contributed his rightful portion to the Lord’s kingdom. If a woman has but one girl, or servant, it seems only right for her to take Sunday about with that servant, or propose to do so, that the poor girl may also know occasionally the pleasure of putting on her good clothes early Sunday morning and walking with a quiet conscience to the house of God. And then it gives the lady of the house a good two hours to reflect upon the drudgery that the hired laborer does for the household—and if she be an inexperienced woman, she should learn to cook one dinner a week. Perhaps these are rigid rules, but they bring good results to a woman’s heart and home. Suppose you have purchased some game for Sunday dinner: see that it is prepared for cooking on Saturday, so that the mere roasting of it will cause you little trouble on Sunday; and if, in addition to this, you and your husband have determined, instead of having six vegetables, as most American tables present, to have but one and a salad, let it be in this instance mashed Irish potatoes and celery, or lettuce, or even fine-chopped cabbage, if no other acid can be had. If you have not had soup, manage to compensate by beautiful desserts, which are easily arranged on Saturday also. Blanc mange or custards are better by being cold. Then you can have fresh fruits, and after dinner coffee. Does this seem a meagre and miserably arranged dinner, or does the following combination, which I not long ago found on an American table, seem better? Fish, beef, onions, eggs, cabbage, dried peaches, and pickles, before one’s eyes all at once! There is as much difference to an æsthetical taste between the simple but harmonious dinner, described above, and the incongruous, distasteful dinner just mentioned, as there is between a well-selected costume on a pretty woman, and an ugly mixture of color and cut, covered by laces and jewelry, on an ugly woman; or, between a tastefully arranged drawing-room and a hodge-podge of furniture and drapery, which have no one element of similitude.
As the legend goes, Monday is the “tug of war” for housekeepers. Admit that the dinner is the secondary thing and that it must be late in starting. But if you have an understanding with your butcher to send a piece of beef for boiling and you put it on at 10 o’clock with a few carrots and an onion to flavor it, you will have some deliciously tender stuff at 12 o’clock, with enough bouillon to set away for to-morrow, and if you have horse-radish to eat your beef with, and some macaroni a la creme, or baked tomatoes or sweet potatoes (one, not all three), with a good salad (an indispensable article), your Monday dinner will not be so dreadful, although it has cost little or no time in the preparation. See that your husband makes the salad dressing if he is well disposed to do his part, at the table. A woman has enough to look after of such details. Dispense with the dessert on Monday, but let fresh fruit never be absent from your table if you can afford it. Oranges, bananas, apples, grapes, pears, peaches; how lavish Nature is in this direction!
For our Tuesday dinner we have the bouillon set away from yesterday—so that a roast is essential—always alternating between boiling and roasting, and never letting a dinner be roasted throughout, or vice versa. A roast of lamb or mutton with mint sauce, and turnips boiled, and apple jelly, will perhaps answer, as we have had the soup to begin with. A good plum pudding would taste well after this and some acid fruit, with your coffee to finish with. Of course, Europeans begin every dinner with soup, and their recipes are innumerable. But we are here endeavoring to get up inexpensive meals that almost any family can indulge in.
Wednesday: Chickens or squirrel fricasseed, or boiled with rice and seasoned with East India curry, makes a very inviting dish, if the rice is laid around the chicken and garnished with parsley. Give us peas, or lima beans, or Saratoga potatoes with this meat. Saratoga potatoes served when the chicken is brought on, and later a course of tongue and peas—if the gentleman of the house complains that chicken is too delicate a fowl for him to make a dinner from. Dessert, a lemon pie or pudding, etc., etc.
Thursday: To-day the washing and ironing are all through with, and the best dinner of the week can be prepared. What shall it be? An Englishman would say, roast beef; a German, a goose; an Italian, veal, tomatoes, and macaroni; a Frenchman, wild pigeons, or sweet-breads, or deviled crabs, or some dainty combinations. What does the great American heart cry out for? Turkey and oysters! turkey and oysters! and six vegetables; everything the season affords, reserving nothing for the morrow. Have your own way about this Thursday dinner. I shall not interfere with economic ideas or European combinations, but promise to tell me when it is over if your purse is not lighter and your stomach heavier than you anticipated? If so, Friday, I shall take you under instruction again, and to restore your over-taxed stomach we will have, first, a good beef soup, and, to invigorate you mentally, after the soup, we will have a beautiful salmon, or any large fish, stuffed and baked; served with potatoes and barley bread, which will also give phosphorus. Stewed cherries for dessert, and cheese and crackers will supply other needs.