SUPPER.
No time of the day is more pleasant than the evening hours after the
day's work is over; there is a solemn calm and quiet in them which
charms both soul and body.
This time of ease and rest must not be disturbed on our part by
overburdening the stomach. We eat only for the purpose of compensating
for the loss experienced through our work; we should not eat more than
is necessary to supply the strength lost; in other words, to give us
sufficient strength to continue our labor. And as the day's work is
finished, there being not much work before us, we need not take much
food.
When glancing at a sleeping person and noticing his long breathing and
increased perspiration, one may be led to the belief that he loses much
oxygen and water during his sleep; that therefore we must provide
ourselves abundantly with food before retiring to bed. This is, however,
a mistake. The breath of a sleeping person is long and deep, but very
slow; and his perspiring does not cause any great loss of water, but
comes rather from this, that one's body during the night is more
protected by covers and closed windows, etc., from draft which dries our
evaporation, and therefore prevents perspiration in day-time. During
sleep we need even less of bodily strength than through the day; for
this reason we feel no hunger in the night, and, in spite of the long
fasting, no fatigue in the morning.
From this we conclude that supper should not be a meal for the night,
but merely for the last hours of the day. It should be no meal
_praenumerando_, but _postnumerando_!
It is therefore best to choose but light dishes, which, if we wish to
rest well, must be easily digested, and eaten at least two or three
hours before bed-time.
For healthy people a warm supper is unnecessary; our dinner is taken
warm for the purpose only of keeping the gluten and fat of the food
liquid; as this kind of food, however, is not proper for supper, we need
not take it at all in the evening. If we do, it is but an additional
burden to the housewife, who surely has enough trouble and labor in the
kitchen during the day. He who is not satisfied with a piece of bread
and butter and a glass of beer, may eat a piece of cheese besides; but
it must be no other kind than sour cheese--the Germans call it
_Schmierkaese_--common cheese being too heavy for night because of its
containing fat. This sour cheese, whether soft or hardened, is easily
digested; it even excites the stomach like spice, especially if you eat
it with caraway seeds, and thus promotes the secretion of gastric juice.
The other kind of cheese is, for no other reason than that, often eaten
after dinner; for, though taken by itself scarcely digestible, if eaten
in very small quantity, it increases by its action upon the stomach, the
quantity of gastric juice there, and, therefore, promotes digestion in
general.
Should we, however, for one reason or the other, insist upon having a
more substantial supper, then let us take soft-boiled eggs. The
nutritive quality of eggs is equivalent to that of meat. They unite all
good sides of the meat; nay, we may say here, that the most nourishing
part in meat is nothing but egg-white, or, as we call it, "albumen."
We recommend soft-boiled eggs, because hard ones are difficult to
digest. They are best prepared by boiling, if the water is allowed to
boil first and the eggs put in afterwards. The reason of this is, that
the boiling water hardens the outer part of the egg very rapidly,
forming a thick crust, which prevents the heat of the boiling water from
penetrating farther.
It is a custom of our country to take tea in the evening. Tea is no
article of food, but it possesses the qualities of coffee; it warms the
blood, increases the activity of the heart, and produces a certain
freshness of the mind, which is a good remedy against ennui and
sleepiness in a company or party.
And since we are speaking of ennui and sleepiness, we think it advisable
to close our present subject, "The Articles of Food for the People," and
we part from our readers with the full conviction that they will enjoy
their real "articles of food" much better than they have relished these
scientific conversations about them.