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.