Cologne being a large city, somewhat Frenchified in its ways, M. Dumas manages pretty well as regards eating and drinking; but, as he ascends the river, matters get worse. He arrives at Bonn at the hour of the one o'clock meal, called the first dinner, and we find him expatiating on the subject of German appetites and feeding.
"The Germans eat from morning till night. On opening their eyes, at seven o'clock in the morning, they take their coffee—at eleven, breakfast—at one, the little dinner, (a sort of luncheon)—at three, dinner—at five, another meal, nondescript, nameless, and abundant—at nine, a tremendous supper, preparatory to going to bed. Tea, cakes, and sandwiches, fill up the intervals."
This is really only a moderate exaggeration on the part of M. Dumas. Five meals a-day, three of them solid, meat-devouring, wine-bibbing feeds, are the regular allowance of every well-conditioned, well-to-do, comfortable Rhinelander. We do not consider Frenchmen small eaters, whatever they may consider themselves—if they eat little of each dish, they eat of a vast number; but for examples of positive voracity, commend us to a German table-d'hôte. A coachful of French commis voyageurs, assembled, after a ten hours' fast, round the luxurious profusion and delicacies of a Languedocian dinner, would appear mere babes and sucklings in the eating way, compared to a party of Germans at their one o'clock feed. The difference is nearly as great as between the Lady Amine eating rice with a bodkin, and the same fair one battening ghoulishly upon the cold meat in the cemetery. Nothing can equal the persevering industry with which a German crams himself at a public table, where, having to pay a fixed sum for his dinner, he always seems desirous to get as much as he can for his money. The obligato bowl of soup is followed by sundry huge slices of boiled beef, sufficient of themselves for an ordinary man's dinner, but by no means sufficing for a German's; then come fowl and meat, fish, puddings and creams, and meat again; sweet, sour, and greasy—greasy, sweet, and sour, alternating and following one another in inextricable and interminable confusion. Every body eats of every thing largely and voraciously, and the short pauses between the appearance of the dishes are filled up by nibblings at such salutary and digestible extremets as raw hams and herrings, pickled cucumbers, and pickled grapes! German cookery is famous for odd mixtures. M. Dumas is rather amusing on this head.
"At Bonn, the dinner they served me consisted of an unintelligible sort of soup, full of round balls of a pasty substance; beef stewed with prunes, hare dressed with preserves, wild boar with cherries; it was impossible to take more pains to spoil things which separately, would have been very commendable eating. I tasted them each in turn, and each time sent away my plate. When I sent away the wild boar, the waiter could stand it no longer.
"'Does not monsieur like wild boar with cherries?'
"'I detest it!'
"'That is singular; a great poet like monsieur.'
"'You are mistaken, my man: I make verses perhaps; but that is no reason for calling me a great poet, nor for ruining the coats of my stomach with your infernal fricassees. Besides, supposing I were a great poet, what has poetry got to do with pig and cherry sauce?'
"'Our great Schiller adored that dish.'
"'Our tastes differ, then. I have no objection to William Tell or Wallenstein, but—— take away your pig.'