By the Author of “Home Life in Germany,” etc.
I received a letter from Germany the other day, written by a young
American woman who was recently married to a German officer. They
live in a city with about the population of Rochester, N. Y., only
distinguished from other places of its size in possessing an old
cathedral, a water-cure (_Bade Anstalt_), and being a military post.
These distinguishing features have nothing to do, however, with the
part of her letter which I desire to reflect upon. She writes:
“I am so fortunately situated in domestic matters; I have really no
care, the _mädchen_ is so competent, and so willing, it is a real
pleasure to keep house.”
Just before the arrival of this letter I had patiently listened for two
hours to the just and lamentable complaints of an American house-keeper
about “the impossibility of procuring a good servant!” The latter
resides in a university town, and if a university is worse than a
garrison, or students than military men, in destroying the tone of the
laboring women and girls, then let the fact have its weight against
the statement that the relation between mistress and maid in Europe
is better regulated and understood than in America. The two cases I
have presented seem to me to have about equal accessories, and it is a
curious search to find the reasons for the difference in them.
“Six years ago the Empress of Germany announced that
she would henceforth decorate with a golden cross
every female servant who had passed forty years of her
life in the same family. The Empress has been called
upon to bestow this mark of her royal favor 893 times.
Can any other country make such a remarkable showing?
In America house-maids are apt to reckon their terms
of continuous service by weeks and months instead of
by years. The beginning of reform in this matter is
anxiously awaited by millions of worried households.
The heavy emigration from Germany to this country ought
to bring to our shores some of these steady-going
maids. Possibly there is something in the atmosphere of
America, in the restless movement of our people that
puts the devil of change into the heads of Gretchens
and Bridgets.”
It is the “devil of change,” as the writer expresses it, which gets
into the heads of the Gretchens and Katherinas when they come to this
country. I think I have discovered a still better reason, which I
shall timidly reveal later on, for, in doing so, I must encroach upon
national taste and education.
First of all, we should consider that especially the uneducated German
man, or woman, girl, or boy, loves the _Vaterland_. The _heimath_,
with its low ceilings and plastered walls, its sanded floors and
wooden bench outside the door, where the father smokes his pipe in
the evening, while the mother knits, is all enshrined in the hearts
of the children, and the recollection of the _festtage_, when the
father and mother put on their best clothes and take all the children
to the neighboring beer-garden to hear music, is always joyous. It is
only by rumors of “higher wages” that such people are ever induced to
bundle up the feather beds, and lock the wooden chest, and start as
poor steerage passengers across the great Atlantic. After the horrors
of the voyage, and the strange and confusing days of Castle Garden,
what do they find in place of the old home and the familiar ways of
the _Vaterland_? The daughters hire out probably for cooks. First of
all, they are expected to cook a heavy breakfast by 8 o’clock, and
nothing seems so hard to a foreigner as this. Their traditions are at
once set at naught. They begin to grind on a differently constructed
wheel. Just as John Chinaman has to learn that we even turn the screw
the opposite way to the way in which he has been drilled, so the poor
Germans have to learn that if Americans offer higher wages, they also
expect things done in their own way. The dull gray kitchen is perhaps
a previous disappointment to the heavy breakfast. No white tiles
around the oven; no brassware to see her face in! No open market with
benches where she can sit and talk with the market women under their
red umbrellas, and watch the lads go by: covered, dull grey places are
our American markets compared with the bazar appearance of the meat
and vegetable markets of Europe. No concert in the evening for five
cents. Nothing—but a long day and a longer evening in an uninteresting
kitchen, with different food and different duties. Finding a young,
fresh-looking girl with her white cap on her head, in the kitchen of a
friend of mine, recently, where I chanced to be visiting, I asked her
in German if she was contented in this country, remarking at the same
time that she was fortunate to live with a lady who could speak German,
and who was so kind. “O yes,” said she; “but then I think I can do
better. If I can’t, it were happier for me in the _Vaterland_.”
One of our distinguished politicians and scholars, who served in
Germany as United States minister, brought back with him a German
_diener_, or butler. Karl did well for a season; maintained his
respectful bearing toward the _herrschaften_ and their guests until
finally he announced he was “discontented,” and the reason for his
desire to change places was that the _herrschaften_ did not entertain
as grandly in this country as they did in Germany, and that the guests
were not such fine ladies and gentlemen—they did not give _trink-gelt_
(civility money). But the most heartfelt reason was, he was lonely.
He missed music, he missed beer, he missed _gemüthlichkeit_, and fine
and high titles by which to call the ladies and gentlemen. And then
the _festtage_—no days in America for the poor working classes to be
relieved from care and have a good time. This did not please Karl.
On these _festtage_ in Germany a servant man or woman has as good
a chance to go to a picture gallery, or a pottery, or a museum, or
a concert, as gentlefolks; and does not the knowledge and pleasure
gained at such places make the servant more cheerful, and intelligent,
and competent to look at work not as drudgery, but as something in
which the whole human family is engaged in one way or another? Said an
observing servant to me after an afternoon in a picture gallery: “How
can those poor artists sit all day long with their feet on the stone
floor and copy pictures? They look so tired I was glad I was not one
of them!” After a visit to the _Königliche Porzellan Manufactur_, in
Charlottenburg, I remember once having asked a servant if she knew how
much labor it required to manufacture a cup and saucer; and I proceeded
to tell her how the feldspar found in the vicinity of Berlin was ground
to powder, cleaned through various tanks of water, each time running
through a sieve, then how they pass it between heavy weights so that it
came out in great sheets of pliable putty, which are laid over moulds,
just as a piece of dough is laid over a pie-pan. When these forms are
taken off, they are carefully finished in every indentation by skilful
workmen, who have delicate tools for the purpose. Afterward they take
these forms, cups, saucers, plates, vegetable dishes, as they may be,
and bake them in ovens for sixteen hours the first time, and after they
are taken out they are glazed and baked again, and then if the ware is
to be painted it must be baked again; and if gilded, still again. I
ended this elaborate description all out of breath, for it required as
much command of the German language as I at that time thought I had.
The attentive girl, however, relieved my excitement by saying: “Yes; I
have been out there, _gnädige frau_, and seen it all, and this is why
I try to be so careful with china.” In the five years this good girl
had lived with me she had rarely broken a piece. I could but think how
unlike the answer “Biddy” would have given, that “the kitchen floor
is very hard on china.” I have known servant girls as much interested
in the collections of laces in the museums, especially the specimens
made by poor peasant women in different centuries, as any high-born
lady, and much more capable of reproducing specimens of this industry.
The costumes of the peasants and the costumes of the kings and queens,
and the furniture used by the latter, will attract crowds of ignorant
people by the hour in European museums. But who ever sees any but the
intelligent and rich walking about in the Metropolitan Museum of New
York, or the Academy in Boston. We do not care to interest the working
classes in this country; only care to see that they work well and as
many hours as possible. “There remains,” says a writer on duties of
contract, “outside of their actual service, or of any assumption of
authority on our side, really limitless fields for the exercise of
our natural influence as their immediate superiors and friends.” I
think, in the matter of lodging—the rooms the Americans give their
servants to sleep in—they fare infinitely better than in any foreign
country; but the food is not so well adapted to their physical wants.
Delicate dishes and highly seasoned food are sent into the kitchen for
the servants by our American housekeepers, and you hear them say: “O,
we would not think of denying our servants all the dainties of our
own table.” Do they ever think that a working man or woman, no matter
of what nationality, prefers boiled beef and turnips, or bacon and
cabbage, to sweet breads and peas, or venison and cauliflower. But this
is an inexhaustible theme, and one I must defer yet again before I
venture to say what I think about the genuine American table.
In the town of Delitzsch, in the province of Posen, resides a man—Herr
Schulze-Delitzsch—who has devoted himself almost exclusively for
years to the study of the labor question and the elevation of the
working classes. He is a great reformer, but escapes being known as
a revolutionist. More practical and perhaps more methodical than
Lasalle, he relies not upon the state for aid, but upon the sympathy
and help of the working classes themselves. He organized workingmen’s
associations, union stores, etc. France, Belgium, Italy, and even
England, became awakened, and looked with interest upon his work, and
inquiries were made by authority of the English government into the
real manner and methods adopted. As a writer on the subject remarks:
“Schulze’s methods are economical and reformatory; Lasalle’s were
political and revolutionary.” The _Credit und Vorschuss Verein_,
which is a species of savings bank, was practically his work. The
members contributed of their savings to this fund, and when old age,
sickness, or misfortune overtook them, and they were obliged to give
up laboring by the day, they were in turn helped. The _Vereins_ were
entirely under the management of the members. The investment of the
capital was entirely under their control, the surplus being divided
annually, and the “sick funds” and “funeral funds” were distributed
by them. The first institution was founded in 1850, and in 1869 the
number reached 1,750. The permanent capital was then 12,000,000
thalers. The hired laborers form a tenth of the membership of the
unions, and they are on the increase; the farmers something more
than a fifth; the tradesmen a tenth, and the mechanics a third. The
farmer’s aim is, in part, the procuring, in common, seed, implements,
etc.; in part, the sale in common of milk, butter, cheese, hops,
wine, and other products. Thus, through moderate and just ideas and
management, much has been accomplished. Working people must not be
fed on incendiary ideas. Ruskin’s lectures to working men savor of
_dilettante_ ideas. A man who has never been poor rarely knows how
to appeal to the poor or guide them. Schulze-Delitzsch’s philosophy
has been learned from actual experience. There is nothing of the
factious orator about him, but he is calm and persuasive. He is not a
social-democrat, but belongs to the progressive party, which stands
for the most advanced form of liberalism. He organizes the poor to
teach them to resist their own worst faults. He was burgomaster of
Delitzsch at one time, after leaving political life in the capital,
because of differences which arose. He was assisted by his mother to
go on lecturing tours, and when this was no longer practicable—as she
had also small means—there was a purse raised by the citizens, which
reached the sum of 50,000 thalers; the greater part being given by
the poor working people in paltry sums. Thus he was saved for higher
work, and gave up the position of burgomaster. He accepted this money
only in trust—investing part in a home at Potsdam and the rest in
such a way that the interest only accrues to him. If it was worth
England’s time to inquire into the economic methods of the _Credit und
Vorschuss Verein_, perhaps America could utilize some ideas on this
subject. Germany is finding out many of our ways and means, which she
considers superior to her own conservative methods. Dr. Max Zering,
of Berlin, was recently commissioned by the government of Prussia
to investigate and report upon the agricultural and transportation
interests and methods of the United States. He will visit the different
cities, make the acquaintance of their boards of trade, chambers of
commerce, and railroad managers. It seems that the day has come when
nations are becoming very liberal toward one another. The exclusive
spirit which prevails in China, more than in any other country, is fast
being eradicated, and all people are exclaiming, “If you know anything
better, or accomplish anything in an easier way than we do, pray let us
have a lesson of you.”
Perhaps different nations show their identity more in regard to
preparing and eating food than in any other particular. The roots from
which their different languages spring are more easily discerned by a
philologist, than the common-sense basis which has suggested to each
people its separate ideas on food and the preparation of it, is found
out by any scientific chemist. I have been asked so often how the
German markets and groceries compare with ours in variety and price,
that it occurs to me to insert here an extract from an account book of
my butcher and grocer of the _preis courant_ for the years 1876, 1877,
1878, etc.:
Price per pound.
Marks Pf. $ cts.
Filet (Beef) 1 20 .28½
Schmorfleisch (Stewing Meat) 1 00 .238
Schabefleisch (Hashed Meat) 90 .21
Rindfleisch-Braten (Roast Beef) 95 .22½
Suppenfleisch (Meat for Soup) 80 .19
Kalbskeule (Veal) 90 .21
Kalbsbrust (Breast of Veal) 75 .18
Kalbs-Cotelette (Veal Cutlets) 1 20 .28½
Hammelkeule (Shoulder of Mutton) 80 .19
Hammel-Cotelettes (Mutton Chops) 75 .18
Hammelbrust (Breast of Mutton) 75 .18
Schweinefleisch (Pork) 90 .21
This was taken from a printed circular which every butcher of standing
in a large German city presents to his customers once a year. The
market list below is not complete, of course, but the great American
turkey, it will be observed, brings a high price in Germany, as well as
American hams.
Marks. Pf. $ cts.
One Goose, 3 00 .71
One Turkey, 10 00 2.38
Fish, — — ——
Oysters, — — ——
Ham per lb. 1 80 .428
Corn Beef per lb. 2 00 .47½
Cheese per lb. 50 .12
Butter per lb. 1 80 .428
Lard per lb. 90 .21
Candles per lb. 1 00 .238
Salt per lb. 1 00 .238
Sugar per lb. 60 .14
Coffee per lb. 1 50 .35½
Rice per lb. 40 .10
Chocolate per lb. 80 .19
One dozen Vienna rolls or cakes of bread for 30 days cost $2.50.
Some of these prices will show that Germany is no longer a cheap
country to live in, but the way in which articles of food are used and
managed is where the French and Germans excel in economy. For instance,
American housekeepers say in the winter and fall and spring, “It is
so difficult to keep a good table, because there is so little variety
in our markets.” And when they say this there will oftentimes be ten
different meats and as many vegetables to be had. Now why does this
complaint go on from year to year? Men and women are both to blame
for it, and to show how they are is an easy task. If these ten meats
and corresponding number of vegetable are judiciously managed, both
health and economy can be forwarded. I will enumerate the meats and
vegetables, that no housekeeper may say this is random talk: Beef
(1), mutton (2), veal (3), pork (4), ham (5), corn beef (6), turkey
(7), chicken (8), fish (9), game (10); kidneys, sweet-breads, and
the like, not to be mentioned here, for fear our American taste will
falter. Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions,
cabbage, beets, beans, squash, celery. Here you have ten without all
the fine canned peas and tomatoes and corn on your shelves. Now, I am
laughing because every delicately-minded woman in America exclaims
at once, “But you have enumerated vegetables that our husbands and
we ourselves would not touch!” Well, neither would a Frenchman, if
they came on his table with the combinations of meat, etc., that you
serve them with. A Frenchman knows (and the highest toned German has
learned from him) that there are chemical affinities in food, and he
selects his meat to correspond with his vegetable, or _vice versa_,
as carefully as he would combine chemical properties in a laboratory;
or as discreetly as he would choose guests for his drawing-room or
dinner-table; or as daintily as his wife would select gloves to match
her bonnet. Food assorted with bad taste and judgment on his table is
as distasteful as a delicate watercolor framed in a moulding which
belongs to a heavy old historical oil painting is to his eye. The
subject may seem to many unworthy such attention. There are those who
boast that “they do not care what they eat, so they get enough! or
how the table is set, or whether everything comes on at once or not!”
Well, this is the way Frederick the Great’s father felt; the ruder and
rougher, the better for his children; whether they took bread with a
fork, or ate with their knives, or mixed cabbage and eggs, it didn’t
matter to him, so the exchequer was sound. But what effect did all this
boorish home-life have upon young Frederick? It made him eschew every
German custom, every Teutonic idea, and give himself up entirely to the
French, to be ruled by his French cooks, and dressed by French tailors,
and entertained by French wits. Now the Germans have established
their own reputation for combinations which they consider good, and
it appears that the wife of our honored poet, who died as United
States Minister in Berlin (a German woman by birth), is not ashamed
to write on German cookery, although a woman of high and unquestioned
literary attainments, who could help her husband in the arduous task of
translating Faust. We Americans do not study this matter, or if we do,
and make an effort to improve, it is simply an imitation, and a poor
one at that, of some European ways. As health and happiness depend so
much upon whether our dinner “sets well,” the knowledge of instituting
such a mode of living as is best calculated to preserve health, is
a most desirable acquisition. And if errors are committed in this
respect, our injured system must suffer the bad consequences.
Now let us make a practical résumé of the subject: There are ten meats
and ten vegetables in the market and twenty-one meals in the week to
provide for. Let us first think of Sunday, for every man wants a good
dinner on Sunday, especially if he has done his duty at church, and
contributed his rightful portion to the Lord’s kingdom. If a woman
has but one girl, or servant, it seems only right for her to take
Sunday about with that servant, or propose to do so, that the poor
girl may also know occasionally the pleasure of putting on her good
clothes early Sunday morning and walking with a quiet conscience to
the house of God. And then it gives the lady of the house a good two
hours to reflect upon the drudgery that the hired laborer does for the
household—and if she be an inexperienced woman, she should learn to
cook one dinner a week. Perhaps these are rigid rules, but they bring
good results to a woman’s heart and home. Suppose you have purchased
some game for Sunday dinner: see that it is prepared for cooking on
Saturday, so that the mere roasting of it will cause you little trouble
on Sunday; and if, in addition to this, you and your husband have
determined, instead of having six vegetables, as most American tables
present, to have but one and a salad, let it be in this instance mashed
Irish potatoes and celery, or lettuce, or even fine-chopped cabbage,
if no other acid can be had. If you have not had soup, manage to
compensate by beautiful desserts, which are easily arranged on Saturday
also. Blanc mange or custards are better by being cold. Then you can
have fresh fruits, and after dinner coffee. Does this seem a meagre
and miserably arranged dinner, or does the following combination,
which I not long ago found on an American table, seem better? Fish,
beef, onions, eggs, cabbage, dried peaches, and pickles, before one’s
eyes all at once! There is as much difference to an æsthetical taste
between the simple but harmonious dinner, described above, and the
incongruous, distasteful dinner just mentioned, as there is between a
well-selected costume on a pretty woman, and an ugly mixture of color
and cut, covered by laces and jewelry, on an ugly woman; or, between
a tastefully arranged drawing-room and a hodge-podge of furniture and
drapery, which have no one element of similitude.
As the legend goes, Monday is the “tug of war” for housekeepers. Admit
that the dinner is the secondary thing and that it must be late in
starting. But if you have an understanding with your butcher to send
a piece of beef for boiling and you put it on at 10 o’clock with a
few carrots and an onion to flavor it, you will have some deliciously
tender stuff at 12 o’clock, with enough _bouillon_ to set away for
to-morrow, and if you have horse-radish to eat your beef with, and some
macaroni _a la creme_, or baked tomatoes or sweet potatoes (one, not
all three), with a good salad (an indispensable article), your Monday
dinner will not be so dreadful, although it has cost little or no time
in the preparation. See that your husband makes the salad dressing if
he is well disposed to do his part, at the table. A woman has enough to
look after of such details. Dispense with the dessert on Monday, but
let fresh fruit never be absent from your table if you can afford it.
Oranges, bananas, apples, grapes, pears, peaches; how lavish Nature is
in this direction!
For our Tuesday dinner we have the _bouillon_ set away from
yesterday—so that a roast is essential—always alternating between
boiling and roasting, and never letting a dinner be roasted throughout,
or _vice versa_. A roast of lamb or mutton with mint sauce, and turnips
boiled, and apple jelly, will perhaps answer, as we have had the soup
to begin with. A good plum pudding would taste well after this and some
acid fruit, with your coffee to finish with. Of course, Europeans begin
every dinner with soup, and their recipes are innumerable. But we are
here endeavoring to get up inexpensive meals that almost any family can
indulge in.
Wednesday: Chickens or squirrel fricasseed, or boiled with rice and
seasoned with East India curry, makes a very inviting dish, if the rice
is laid around the chicken and garnished with parsley. Give us peas,
or lima beans, or Saratoga potatoes with this meat. Saratoga potatoes
served when the chicken is brought on, and later a course of tongue
and peas—if the gentleman of the house complains that chicken is too
delicate a fowl for him to make a dinner from. Dessert, a lemon pie or
pudding, etc., etc.
Thursday: To-day the washing and ironing are all through with, and
the best dinner of the week can be prepared. What shall it be? An
Englishman would say, roast beef; a German, a goose; an Italian, veal,
tomatoes, and macaroni; a Frenchman, wild pigeons, or sweet-breads,
or deviled crabs, or some dainty combinations. What does the great
American heart cry out for? Turkey and oysters! turkey and oysters! and
six vegetables; everything the season affords, reserving nothing for
the morrow. Have your own way about this Thursday dinner. I shall not
interfere with economic ideas or European combinations, but promise to
tell me when it is over if your purse is not lighter and your stomach
heavier than you anticipated? If so, Friday, I shall take you under
instruction again, and to restore your over-taxed stomach we will have,
first, a good beef soup, and, to invigorate you mentally, after the
soup, we will have a beautiful salmon, or any large fish, stuffed and
baked; served with potatoes and barley bread, which will also give
phosphorus. Stewed cherries for dessert, and cheese and crackers will
supply other needs.
By Saturday you will have recovered from that heavy dinner of Thursday,
and from Friday’s dinner the cook will possibly have saved enough fish
to make some nice little fish patties to serve before the good, rare
roast of beef, which for our Saturday dinner is accompanied by spinach,
made very fine, mashed to the consistency of mashed potatoes, and
served with a plateful of bread-dice, (in form of cubes), which have
been fried as one fries doughnuts; roasted potatoes and a fresh salad;
a cardinal, or transparent, or cream pudding, and your fresh fruit, and
after dinner coffee.
You will feel, as Sunday approaches again, that you have at least had
variety from day to day, and not eaten something of everything the
market affords every day, until you are utterly tired of everything!
From the beef of Saturday can be prepared for Sunday breakfast what the
French call a _râgout_, which is more savory than hash, because the
pieces of meat are left about two inches in size, and flavored with a
bit of bacon, potatoes, carrots, and onions.
In this enumeration I have left beefsteak, liver, kidneys,
sweet-breads, and ham untouched. All of these I presumed you would
claim for your breakfasts and teas. Sardines, and dried beef and
tongue, and many other things the market also gives you, and in
exercising some ingenuity you will not have to repeat the same dish day
after day, nor confine yourself to roasting and frying everything, when
things are often better boiled, or stewed, or smothered. And now I will
not intrude upon another Sunday dinner. I can only hope, in parting
from the subject and from you, that the kitchen and dining-room have
grown more interesting.
I think of but one other habit and one custom in which the Germans
differ from us. Instead of sitting in their bed-rooms, as so many
Americans do, they invariably have a sitting-room attached to the
bed-room, and the bed-room is used merely as a place for repose.
They pay their physicians so much a year, whether there be need for
their services or not. Some years it happens there will be many members
of the household sick, but the doctor is not expected to ask more that
year than he did the year before, when he was only called once or
twice. Fifty thalers is the usual amount for a small family, or about
forty dollars of our money. Professional nurses are to be found even in
small provincial towns, and neighbors are not called upon, as among us,
to serve this purpose.
* * * * *
“Slander,” says Saint Bernard, “is a poison which extinguishes charity,
both in the slanderer and in the person who listens to it; so that a
single calumny may prove fatal to an infinite number of souls, since it
kills not only those who circulate it, but also all those who do not
reject it.”—_Pascal._