The same excellent arrangements for keeping the fish cold without spoiling their flavor by freezing them are to be found on German steamers. On the eighth day out on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria I found the salmon as fresh-tasting as if it had just been caught. "How do you do it?" I asked Captain Ruser; and he explained the system—the refrigerating arrangements which, with steady ventilation, provide a frigid atmosphere without actually freezing the fish or the meat.
Such things cost time and money; but the Germans, being a gastronomic nation, consider them worth while, on sea as well as on shore.
Hamburg sets a good example in showing what a municipal government can do in the way of providing the people with fresh fish and telling them what to do with them. The following is from the "Fremdenblatt" of that city; similar notices frequently appear in the newspapers:
Sale of Cheap Sea Fish. "The Staatliche Fischereidirektion" informs us that on Tuesday, August 20, there will be on sale, at the known 150 shops, fresh haddocks—averaging 3/4 pound apiece—at 23 pfennigs [5-3/4 cents] a pound. Besides this, many shops offer for sale fresh mackerel at twenty to twenty-five pfennigs [5 to 6-1/4 cents] apiece, according to size. The mackerel is an excellent fish both for frying and boiling. New directions for cooking haddock in a variety of ways are contained in the illustrated booklet, "Fischkost," which is given free to purchasers at all the stalls.
The Hamburgers are lucky in having the "net gains" of sea fishing placed before them at the earliest possible moment. With the aid of the arrangements just referred to these fishes can, however, be bought in good condition as far away as Vienna. A few years ago the Austrian officials had a number of railway cars constructed for the transportation of sea fish and also of live fresh-water fish. Germany has had such cars for decades, bringing fish not only from her own ports but from Holland and elsewhere. African eels are sent from Algiers to Marseilles and thence by express trains all the way to Berlin.
Eels are usually despised in America and with good reason, for their scavenging habits often make them inedible. But there are eels that live on fresh food, such as small crustaceans at the bottom of the sea, and fish roe; and these are as good as any fish that swims. The large eels served in Berlin are as tender, juicy, and sweet-flavored as shad. When I was a student at the University of Berlin, one of my pet excursions was up the Spree, stopping at an inn where eels of medium size—blau gesotten, were served as a specialty. They were delicious, though they did look strikingly like snakes as they lay curled up on the plate swallowing their own tails.
Not a few persons whose education has been neglected refuse to eat eels, believing them to be allied to snakes, when in truth they are no more related to snakes, zoölogically, than whales are. And even if they were of the snake family what of it, if they taste good? The eminent Norwegian explorer, Dr. Lumholtz, who spent several years among the Australian wild men, told me on his return, while we were enjoying a dish of terrapin together at Henry Villard's, that much as he liked this reptilian delicacy, of which we Americans are so proud, he thought that python liver, which he had had frequent occasion to eat, was quite as good.
While studying at Heidelberg I did not neglect, it is needless to say, the Wolfsbrunnen, famous for its trout. I have eaten trout, caught by myself in many parts of the world, including the Maine woods, Lake Tahoe in California, and Trout Lake in the State of Washington; but none tasted better than a dish served in Berlin at a sumptuous new hotel oddly called Boarding Palace.
All over Germany fish-breeding in ponds is an important industry. Bavaria alone had, in 1909, over 33,000 acres of such ponds, and probably has many more now; Saxony had 200,000 acres, while Silesia had nearly 60,000. The total area of fish ponds in the Empire probably does not fall far short of a quarter of a million acres.
Carp are grown in special abundance, and German carp are very good to eat, especially when they have been artificially fed and fattened with rice, potatoes, fish meal, or dairy refuse.