In some parts of Germany traveling cooking schools have been organized
by the Government. In Prussia it is intended to provide one of them for
every county. These schools move from place to place, remaining long
enough in each to give instruction in housekeeping to the daughters
of laborers, craftsmen, and farmers. In the case of the farm girls the
instruction includes the caretaking of animals, poultry culture, and
the raising of fruits and vegetables. All the girls are taught to cook,
to sew, to repair and clean clothing, and to keep the house clean, with
other things relating to health and nutrition.
One of the principal objects of these itinerant schools is to encourage
the cultivation of a greater variety of vegetables in the home gardens.
In most of the Thuringian villages, for instance, it is said that
the only kind of vegetable known is cabbage. The teachers have had
considerable difficulty in introducing variety, for the German peasant,
like the lower classes everywhere, wants to eat only what he has had
since his childhood. But once tasted the new vegetables are usually
welcomed and acclimated in the villages visited by the itinerant
culinary missionaries.