HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING.
Besides the four elements known to us as such, namely, air, fire, earth, and water, there is a liquid substance not entirely unknown in our country, which, in the kingdom of Bavaria, is sometimes called the fifth element, under the specific name of beer. It is true, that, where this extra element is in such repute, some of the others suffer depreciation, and especially is this true of water, though this latter is still occasionally used both as a beverage and in purifying processes; and there is, too, a tradition, which these inland people have little opportunity of verifying, that it has sometimes been exclusively used for purposes of navigation, and they are aware, that, if at any time they should decide to emigrate to America, they might have occasion to test on a large scale both its utility and its perils for this purpose. The centre of gravity of this fifth element seems to be in the city of Munich, the capital of the kingdom. People in this country who have heard much of lager-beer, and seen a little of its use as introduced into our land from Germany, may, perhaps, suppose that it is equally distributed over all that extensive region known by this name. This is, however, an error. Just as our atmosphere becomes ever less dense according to its distance from the earth's centre of gravity, so this fifth element, as one retires farther from the city of Munich.
It would be an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to enlarge his knowledge of the vis medicatrix Naturæ, for the philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for the statistician, alike indifferent to both: Why do particular articles of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular climates, lands, and localities? Within certain limits the question is easy. The inhabitant of the tropics lives on the bread-fruit, the plantain, the orange, the fig, and the date. They grow around him, drop as it were into his mouth, and are just what he needs to allay his hunger and support his nature. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux of Labrador eat the flesh of bears, reindeer, and seals, and even drink their fat by the quart. Fruits, if they were to be had, would not meet their wants, and Providence has ordered accordingly. He of the tropics, in addition to the external heat, needs but the mild and gentle fire generated by the combustion of his native fruits, to keep his life-fluid in action; while he of the frigid zones must be kept in life and motion by rousing fires of seal's fat. Temperate latitudes produce most fruits, and all the cereals and animals used for food; but Nature nowhere gives us these in the shape of plum-puddings and pastries, or of beer and alcoholic drinks. The combinations and commutations must be manufactured. But does an impulse in man, like the instinct of the bee, lead him to make just what he needs in his particular climate? Does the Bavarian take to beer as the bee to honey? Does instinct or appetite in general shape itself to climate and other outward circumstances? This is but partly true. As Nature has distributed noxious vegetable and animal substances through land and sea, which must be avoided, so man may not pitch or pour indiscriminately into his stomach whatever substance may be cooked or liquid distilled and offered to him, and we are thrown back upon the direct test of their innocent or noxious properties, with full responsibility of action; but still I have a profound conviction that all such general production of the chief articles of food and drink has its origin in some deeply felt necessity of human nature in their particular localities;—the people may be on the wrong track in their attempts to provide for such necessities, but that these are felt and are the stimulus to the production is beyond doubt.
Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand years ago:—"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole country lies in a high latitude,—Munich, though in the southern part, being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at such an elevation,—about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits, none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich. The whole country suffers from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five times in the year, on their chief holidays,—namely, Shrove Tuesday, Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too long in this case to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"—they attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on.
It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people.
Aside from all this, there is an almost total want of the pleasant beverages used in our families. Tea is as good as unknown in Old Bavaria, its use being confined to those who have been in England, or have learned it of the English, and not one woman in twenty thousand can prepare it. Let the word tea be erased from our vocabulary, and from our minds all the cheerful associations which it awakens, and there passes from our hearts none can tell how much of that which we most fondly cherish there,—the family of both sexes, and occasionally some neighbors and friends, seated around the table,—the gently stimulating narcotic diffusing a charm over the whole social being, and communicating itself to the vocal machinery. Fanatical reformers have proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and we half suspect that this objection was originated, and is mischievously propagated, by those who are already developing a love for other beverages. If Cowper, with the "sofa" assigned as his subject, could sing so beautifully of all things social and domestic, what might he not have done with the tea-table—the rallying-point of social life to so many who never had a sofa—for his theme?
From the general use of coffee in the cities and large towns of Germany, we have inferred its general use by the peasantry; but even this is quite limited, in Upper Bavaria at least; it is found only where the influence of city-life has penetrated. Sometimes a peasant woman has a little hid in her chest, from which she stealthily prepares and drinks a cup when her husband is away; but it is little used. This article was brought into Western Europe in the seventeenth century, and found beer in possession of Germany. The monks are said to have preached against the use of coffee, as anticipating, by the dense black smoke which arose from burning it, the "fumes of hell." It came from Turkey, and at that day the Turk was still the hereditary dread of all the peoples on the middle and upper Danube. He was next thing to the Devil; and what came direct from the former could be but recent from the latter.
Their beloved beer could not be traced so directly to an origin in the nether world. The German tribes, as far back as history or tradition reports them, seem to have loved this quieting beverage. Traces of their coming together as now for banqueting purposes, under the shade of Germany's primeval forests, are still found in history and historical traditions. There is one fact which Americans, so accustomed to rapid transformations of society by migration, immigration, and intermixture of races, can scarcely comprehend, even when they know it as a fact: it is the persistency with which national traits adhere to a people in an old country, through generations and decades of generations and of centuries, withstanding the shock of revolution both in government and religion. Tacitus says of these people:—"At meals, they sit every man upon a seat by himself and at a separate table. Arising, they proceed armed to their business; and they go armed also to their banquets. It is no reproach to them to continue day and night drinking. Their drink is fermented from barley or wheat into a certain resemblance of wine. Their food is simple,—wild fruits, fresh game, or coagulated milk. They satisfy hunger without formality and without delicacies. In regard to thirst they do not exercise this moderation. Indulge their appetites by giving them all they desire, and you may conquer them by their vices not less easily than by arms."
Viewing, then, these people of Upper Bavaria, and of Munich in particular, in their cold, raw air,—in their supposed exposure to typhus and typhoid fevers,—deficiency of good food,—the want of the domestic circle as cemented in our country over other beverages,—the national abstemiousness in regard to food, and the addictedness to beer for thousands of years past,—and we have a somewhat rational explanation of the springing-up and development into such monstrous proportions of the manufacture and consumption of this article. Of the many it may be said,—
"They drink their simple beverage with a gust,
And feast upon an onion and a crust."