"Beim vollen Humpen zechen wir, wir kräftigen Germanen,
Und trinken von dem edlen Bier wie weiland unsere Ahnen;
Denn in dem edlen Gerstensaft, da sprudelt noch die alte Kraft."[22]
By the French the Germans are charged with having no cuisine that is worthy of the name, and having produced no poet of gastronomy or no work on the subject that merits serious attention. Dining at midday, and fond of Pumpernickel, what can they be but "barbarians," and how may they be expected to comprehend the finesse of an art which has been created for the elect among mankind? "Surely," argues De Quincey, "of the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the homo ferus who affronts the meridian sun by his inhuman meals, we are entitled to say that he has a maw, but nothing resembling a stomach. A nation must be barbarous which dined in the morning." As with day's decline the sun illumes with fairest hues the western sky, and Nature gradually prepares for sleep by the restful hour of twilight, so it would seem that man, in like manner, after the cark and care of the day should refresh himself by the solace that waits upon the evening dinner and pleasant companionship ere he too retires for the slumbers that are to fit him for the exigencies of the morrow.
But habit is everything, and it is well not to accept these aspersions too seriously, and to remember that no nation surpasses the Germans in the important art of baking, including all forms of breadstuffs and pastry. From her inviting Bäckereis and Conditoreis floats an ambrosial fragrance that may not be equalled by the pâtisseries of Paris, the variety of her products being as great as their cheapness and wholesomeness. One is born a poet, saith the adage; it is equally true that the German is a born baker who has no superior in his sphere. Perchance German cook-books and gastronomical literature have been summarily passed upon, and are not uninteresting reading, after all. It should be recollected that Frederick the Great wrote a poem in praise of his cook, that Martin Schookius composed a book on cheese entitled "De Aversione Casei," and that still another old German work has for its theme the zest of a lemon-peel—a topic that assuredly calls for consummate skill in its elaboration.
Since the latter half of the sixteenth century Germany has contributed her full share of manuals on cookery as compared with most countries. Already, about 1500, there appeared a work entitled "Ein nützlichs Buchlin von der Speis des Menschen." Among the more important treatises of the same century were "Ein neu Kochbuch" (1587), by Marx Rumpolt, cook to the Elector of Mainz and to the Queen of Denmark, and Frau Anna Wecker's "Neu Köstlich und nützliches Koch-Buch" (1597). It was about this period that Montaigne, after his travels through Italy and Germany, declared that even in the inns the Germans paid far better attention to the furbishing of their plates and dishes than was the case with the hostelries of France. Treatises relating to "wohl-schmeckenden Speisen" and "vornehme Tafeln" have since continued to multiply in the Fatherland, until Germany has become fully satisfied with her own mode of cookery and such modifications of certain French and Italian dishes as accord with her chosen ideas of nutrition.
Yet the German cook-book presents serious drawbacks. For, apart from the inevitable tendency of the Zeitwort to twine itself around the end of well-nigh interminable sentences, the characters of the language itself are so trying that a scientific treatise may be perused only at the risk of being compelled to resort to spectacles forever afterwards. The melodious measures of Goethe and Schiller, the cadences of Heine and Lenau, will be found less formidable, the rhythm and flow carrying the eye over the typographical boulders with greater ease. A German cook-book, however, may well deter the most insatiable student from proceeding farther than the initial chapter. Think, for example, what the difficulties would be of absorbing a volume which presents such a title as this: "Die Feinere Kochkunst dargestellt nach den Erfordernissen unserer Zeit, mit Berücksichtigung der damit in Verbindung stehenden sonstigen Zweigen der Gastronomie."
Fancy endeavouring to solve the true inwardness of an ancient Nürnberg treatise which bears this explanation of its contents: "Vollständig vermehrtes Trincier-Buch, von Tafeldecken Trinciren, zeitigung der Mundkoste, Schauessen und Schaugerichten, benebens xxiv Gast oder Tischfragen."
And when we reflect that the German author who undertakes to elucidate a given theme probes it to the very bottom as far as human understanding and science can fathom it, we may readily conclude that to master the literature of German gastronomy would call for stupendous patience on the part of an alien.
Yet Germany has contributed a volume in the French language respecting a province of the nation under consideration, wherein the table manners, customs, alimentation, and the public and private life of the old Germans are most picturesquely and minutely set forth.[23] The ancient province of Alsace, where forty-two varieties of pâtés and countless varieties of cakes have been in use for several centuries, has ever been noted for the excellence of its cooks and its fondness for good cheer. In the tenth century Bishop Uthon of Strassburg viewed with alarm the table excesses of the priests of his diocese, which he attempted to check by establishing monastic schools. In the fourteenth century, on the other hand, Bishop de Lyne, who was termed Kappen-Esser, was charged with gross intemperance by the clergy, who averred he thought only of the pleasures of the table—gulæ ebrietatique deditus—and that he was unable to hold morning audiences without having previously partaken of a rich soup and a fat capon.