Part 3

After the bread card the next food restriction was the two meatless and fatless days a week. On Tuesday and Friday no butcher was allowed to sell meat, and no restaurants or boarding-houses were allowed to serve meat. Monday and Thursday were the fatless days. The butchers were not allowed to sell fat, and the restaurants were not allowed to cook anything in grease. On Wednesday no pork was allowed to be sold.

Until after Christmas there were no other cards, but along in December the butter began to be scarce, and the stores would sell only a half pound to each person, and the people had to stand in line to get that half pound. These butter lines were controlled by the police, and it was no joke standing out in the cold to get a half pound of butter. But after Christmas came in rapid succession the butter card, the meat card, the milk card, the egg card, the soap card and the grocery card. These cards have regulated everything and have stopped the standing in line for articles.

At first the butter card called for half a pound of butter each week, but now it varies. Then it wasn't a separate card, but the center of the bread card was stamped for butter. Now each person gets either 60 grams of butter and 30 grams of margarine, or 80 grams of butter. You must buy your butter in a certain shop where you are registered and you can buy no place else. This is also true of sugar, meat, eggs and potatoes.

At first the meat card was only for home buyers, and the restaurants could serve as much meat as they liked, but soon it was seen that this was not fair to the people who eat at home. A card was issued that was divided off into little sections, so that the meat could be bought all at once or at different times. On the first of May, 1917, the meat card was increased by one-half, and every one is getting 750 grams of meat instead of 500 grams. Here the food commission made a mistake: they should have given out more meat in the cold months and have kept more flour for spring, but instead they increased the meat card in May and lowered the bread card.

Another mistake that the food commission is making is allowing scandalous prices to be charged for fowls. Fish, chickens, geese and turkeys are bought without cards, but the prices are so high that few people can afford to buy them, and the birds are lying rotting in the store windows. Those birds are undrawn to make them weigh more. A medium-sized turkey or goose costs anywhere from sixty to one hundred marks, and a chicken runs about thirty marks.

The milk card was among the first cards, and only sick people and children get milk. The babies get the best milk and the older children get the next best, and after they are served the grown-ups get what is left. Adults have no milk card.

The sugar card varies, but one gets about 1¾ pounds of sugar each month. At preserving time people are given extra sugar and saccharine on the grocery card. The potato card varies. First it was seven pounds a week for each person, then it was reduced to five and then to three, and then it was raised to five again. This was the only card on which we sometimes did not get our allowance, and when there were not enough potatoes for the cards we could get extra bread on our potato card. At first some of the potato cards were red and others blue. The red cards were good on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and the blue ones were good on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Now no potatoes are allowed to be put into the bread.

The egg card came in the summer of 1916, and for a long time afterward it was possible to get all the eggs you wanted in restaurants without a card, but now one must have a card there as well, even if you order an omelet or an _Eierkuchen_, a pancake of which the Germans are very fond.

The _Lebensmittel_ or "grocery" card is a very important card, and it is for buying such things as noodles, rice, barley, oatmeal, macaroni, white cornmeal and cheese. Then they have other cards for buying oil, saccharine, matches, sardines and smoked fish. Fresh fish is without a card. Each week the stores have numbers hanging up in their windows telling what can be bought that week, like "Rice on Number 13" or a "Pudding on Number 6." It is also printed in the newspapers and on the advertising posts, and sometimes you must be registered for the things and can buy them only in a certain store.

On the first soap cards, you could get every month a cake of toilet soap, a cake of laundry soap and some soap powder, but now one can get only 50 grams of either kind of soap and 250 grams of soap powder each month. Soap was one of the hardest things to get, and a cake of real soap sells from five to ten marks a cake. We never thought of taking a bath with soap but used it only on our faces. They have what they call "War Soap," and it can be used on the hands, but if it drops on your dress it leaves a white spot. If you want to give a real swell present to any one in Germany just send a cake of soap.

I always said that when coffee came to an end in Germany the Germans would be ready to make any kind of a peace. How could a German live without coffee? But last summer the coffee gave out and instead of complaining they took to drinking _Kaffee-Ersatz_, or "coffee substitute," with the same passion that they had lavished on real coffee. It is the most horrible stuff any one ever tasted with the exception of the substitute they have for tea, but the Germans say they like it. They have cards for _Kaffee-Ersatz_, and each person gets a half pound a month.

In the cafés in the summer of 1916 they were still serving real coffee with milk and sugar. Then suddenly the waiters commenced asking the patrons if they wished their coffee black or with cream, and then later they asked if you wanted the coffee sweet, and so they brought it, putting in sugar and milk themselves. A little later you did not get sugar but two little pieces of saccharine were served, and now they have a liquid sweet stuff that is used. They do not serve real coffee any more, but most restaurants still serve milk. The famous _Kaffee mélange_, or coffee with whipped cream, was forbidden at the beginning of the war.

When I left Germany they had no beer or tobacco cards, but there was talk about them. The beer restaurants receive only a certain amount of beer each day, and when this is gone the people must wait until the next day. Most beer halls serve only two glasses to each person. In Munich, because of the shortage of beer, some of the beer halls do not open until 6 o'clock at night, and at 4 o'clock the Müncheners gather at the doors with their mugs in their hands, patiently waiting. Sometimes they knock the mugs against the doors to a tune. Munich without beer is a very sad sight!

In Berlin some of the restaurants will serve beer only to people who can get chairs, but this does not faze the clever Berliners, and when they want their beer they bring camp stools with them, and then they are sure to have a seat. It is forbidden to make certain kinds of fine beers because they take too much malt and sugar. None of the beer is as good as in times of peace, but the Germans have forgotten the delicacies of the past, and they live in the food ideals of the present, and they smack their lips and say, "Isn't the beer fine to-night?"

From August 1916 until March 1917 it was forbidden to sell canned vegetables. They were being saved up for the spring months. The store windows were decorated with glass jars filled with the most wonderful kinds of peas, beans and asparagus. I always felt like smashing the window and stealing the stuff, but the Germans only looked at it admiringly and said, "It will be fine when the vegetables are freed."

Everything on the cards is at a set price, and the dealers don't dare to charge one cent more; even the prices of some things not on the cards are regulated. For instance, this spring no one could charge more than one mark a pound for cherries, and many of the cafés had to cut their cake prices. The police got after Kranzler, the famous cake house, and it had to reduce all its cakes to twenty pfennigs each.

When I was in Dresden in May, 1917, I ate elephant meat. An elephant got hurt in the Zoo and had to be killed. A beer restaurant bought his meat for 7000 marks, and it was served with sauerkraut to the public without a card at 1.30 marks. It tasted like the finest kind of chopped meat, and the restaurant was packed as long as the elephant lasted.

The food question is not the same all over Germany, and in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Leipsic they have less than in other places. Bavaria, the Rhine Country and East Prussia are far better off, and in some of the small villages they do not even have a bread card.

One of the hardest things to get is candy. In Berlin one can buy chocolate for sixteen marks a pound, but in Dresden it is very cheap because it is bought on the card. The candy is bought on the grocery card and one gets a half pound every two weeks. Candy lines are the only kind of lines that one sees now in Germany.

One card I forgot to mention is the coal card that will be issued for the coming winter. There is no scarcity of coal, but there are no people or cars for delivering. The people will be given three-fourths as much coal as they formerly consumed.

In times of peace eating in a German restaurant was notoriously cheap, and one could get a menu of soup, meat, potatoes and dessert for 90 pfennigs, and in Munich for 80 pfennigs. Now these same restaurants charge 1.75 marks, that is, twice as much; but even then food is cheaper than in America. Before the war some of the restaurants charged extra if you did not order anything to drink, but this is now done away with.

Anything can be bought without a card if you know how to do it. The government tries in every way to stop this selling, and although the fine is very heavy for selling _ohne Karte_, it goes on just the same. We always managed to get things without a card. Our janitress got coffee for us at 9.25 marks a pound, our vegetable woman gave us extra potatoes, and we could always get eggs. On the card an egg cost 30 pfennigs and without a card we paid anywhere from 50 pfennigs to 1 mark. The hardest thing to get without a card was sugar, for the food commission has an iron hand on the sugar, but we got it for 2.50 marks a pound. On the card it was 30 pfennigs a pound. It is said that butter could be bought for nine marks a pound without the card, but we never tried to get it.

The police sees that every one gets his share of food. If a woman holds a servant girl's rations from her, the girl can report it to the police and the woman is fined. In a boarding-house when the potatoes are passed around the landlady tells you whether you can take two or three potatoes, or one big potato and one small potato. The food conditions are not always comfortable, but the food commission has the things divided off so they will last for years.

WHAT WE ATE IN GERMANY.

Reading over the food restrictions, one does not get a very clear idea of what we really ate in Germany, so I have made out a menu that was possible in the month of April, 1917. April is, of course, one of the hardest months of the year because it is just before the green vegetables come in and the winter supplies are gone. In this month, however, we could buy canned goods which were forbidden during the winter months, and each person was allowed two and one-half pounds of canned goods a week.

The menu as I have written it includes only things which are bought on a card or without a card, but no restricted food that has been bought underhand without a card as everybody does. It does not include any of the expensive articles like chicken, goose, or fresh vegetables which the better middle class have, and it does not include the canned vegetables, fruit and meat which all German families have in their supply cupboard.

When we kept house, we obtained many things from friends, and when my mother came back from a trip to America, she brought with her forty pounds of meat, bacon, ham and sausage, eighteen pounds of butter, sugar, coffee, canned milk, chocolate, rice and flour. Some of this she bought in Denmark, and the rest she brought over from America. In January, 1917, I made a trip to Belgium, and while the Germans were allowed to take only ten pounds of food out of Belgium we had special permits, and I brought back a lot of food. Most people had crooked ways of getting things, and we were all as crooked as we had a chance to be.

Nothing was allowed to be sent from Poland to Germany, but a Polish girl I knew made a trip home to Warsaw, and going over the frontier she made "a hit" with the man that takes up the "louse tickets." You cannot go from Warsaw to Berlin unless you show a ticket stating that you are not lousy. The girl's mother in Warsaw sent the "louse soldier" the food, and he relayed it to Berlin. Once the soldier came to Berlin on a furlough and he called on the Polish girl. He was an awful-looking specimen, but he was served the finest kind of a dinner.

In April we still had 1900 grams of bread, but I have made out the menu with 1600 grams as it is now. Sixteen hundred grams of bread is 32 slices of 50 grams each, but I have allowed five slices of bread a day, for the bread at supper was always cut thin and often weighed only 40 grams. Most families weighed the bread for each person and then every one got his share. People who ate in restaurants always watched their bread rations, for the waiters were liable to bring short weights. If you were in doubt whether you were getting enough in a restaurant, you could demand to have the bread weighed before you. This sometimes stirred up a lot of trouble, and rows often occurred.

We had five pounds of potatoes a week. This makes 2500 grams, and in the menu I have allowed 300 grams of potatoes seven times a week. As this makes only 2100 grams, this leaves 400 grams for the peelings. The omelet for Monday's menu could be made out of real eggs, but the pancakes for Sunday would have to be made out of egg substitute.

As we had 750 grams of meat a week, I have allowed 130 grams four times a week which makes 520 grams, and this leaves 230 grams for sausage. _Graupen_ that I have mentioned is a large coarse barley, and when I say turnips I mean what they call _Kohlrüben_--we sometimes call it rutabaga. We ate this vegetable constantly during the spring of 1917. Most people hated it, but it was fine for filling up space. Dogs were fed almost entirely on it. When I was in Dresden I went to the Zoo, and there they had packages of carrots and _Kohlrüben_ for sale for feeding the monkeys. The monkeys were hungry and they gobbled up the carrots, but they absolutely refused to eat the _Kohlrüben_, and when they were handed a piece they threw it down in disgust.

This menu was typical of the German pension or boarding-house, where the landlady stayed well within the limit of the cards because the things on the cards were cheap. For breakfast we always had the same things--coffee substitute, two pieces of bread, four times a week two pieces of sugar, and three times saccharine, four times a week butter and three times marmalade. Even in peace times Germans eat only coffee and rolls for breakfast. At 11 o'clock they have a second breakfast, and this consisted sometimes of oatmeal with salt and once in a while a piece of bread with jam, then they could not have so much for supper. In the afternoon at 4 o'clock they always have coffee substitute and cake, generally made without eggs or butter and sometimes without flour, using oatmeal or white cornmeal for flour.

DINNER SUPPER

MONDAY

Bouillon. 3 pieces of bread. 300 grams of potatoes, 62½ grams of sausage. scalloped with mushrooms Omelet. Asparagus. and milfix. Pickles. Lard instead of butter. Carrot salad. Tea or beer. White cornmeal with fruit juice. Wine.

TUESDAY

Brown flour soup. 3 pieces of bread. 130 grams of beef. 300 grams of potatoes. 300 grams of potatoes. Dried fish. Stewed onions. Canned beans. Cake. Tea. Beer. Marmalade. Wine.

WEDNESDAY

Noodle soup. 3 pieces of bread. Fish. 62½ grams of sausage. 300 grams of potatoes. 300 grams of potatoes. Fried turnips. Graupen with bouillon. Gelatine. Radishes. Butter. Wine. Tea. Beer.

THURSDAY

Onion soup. 3 pieces of bread. 130 grams of veal. Bouillon. Rice. Canned peas. Canned spinach with 1 egg. Cake. Radishes. Wine. Tea. Beer.

FRIDAY

Vegetable soup. 3 pieces of bread. Graupen with stewed fruit. 300 grams of potatoes. Asparagus. Sardines. Chocolate pudding. Vegetable salad. Butter. Wine. Tea. Beer.

SATURDAY

Asparagus soup. 3 pieces of bread. 130 grams of pork. Macaroni and cheese. 300 grams of potatoes. Turnip salad. Stewed dried apples. Marmalade. Pudding. Pickles. Wine. Tea. Beer.

SUNDAY

Plum soup. 3 pieces of bread. 130 grams of beef. Bouillon. 300 grams of potatoes. Egg pancake filled with cranberries. Turnips. Butter. Radishes. Lemon pudding. Tea. Beer. Wine.

Since the war many war cook-books have been printed, and these books contain recipes for dishes that can be made with things now obtainable in Germany. Some of these recipes are very good, and some of them are simply awful. I will give you some of the most used and popular ones.

BEER SOUP.

2 quarts of beer brought to a boil. 1 egg well beaten. 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar. Flour to thicken. Boil and serve hot.

PLUM SOUP.

½ pound of plums boiled in a quart of water and strained. 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar. ½ cup of oatmeal. Boil and serve cold.

APPLE SOUP.

3 cups of apple sauce sweetened. 2 bouillon cubes. 3 cups of water. Boil and serve hot. (Pear soup is made in the same way.)

ONION SOUP.

6 large onions boiled and put through a colander. 2 bouillon cubes. 1 quart of water. Flour to thicken. Boil and serve hot.

POTATO AND CABBAGE PUDDING. (This is used as a meat substitute.)

1 head of cabbage boiled thirty minutes. 6 sliced potatoes. Boil all together until soft.

1 teaspoonful of lard, heat and add flour until a brown gravy is made. Add salt and pepper. Stir into potatoes and cabbage and serve hot.

BAKED VEGETABLES.

½ head cabbage. ½ rutabaga sliced. 4 potatoes sliced. 2 bouillon cubes, flour thickening and seasoning. Mix together and bake in oven for one hour.

STUFFED CABBAGE.

1 head of cabbage boiled one-half hour. 1 cup of chopped meat fried in fat. Quarter the cabbage, scooping out the heart. Fill the space with meat. Bake in an oven ten minutes and serve hot.

CUCUMBERS WITH MUSTARD SAUCE.

3 large cucumbers halved lengthwise and boiled. 1 quart of water boiled with mustard to taste and thickened with flour--sweetened. Pour the mustard sauce into a deep dish and lay the hot cucumbers on top.

POTATO DUMPLINGS WITH STEWED FRUIT.

6 large raw potatoes grated. 1 egg or 2 egg substitute powders. 1 cup bread grated and browned. Add enough flour to thicken and form into dumplings. Boil for half an hour. Serve with hot stewed fruit--peaches, apples, apricots or plums.

DROP CAKES WITHOUT EGGS, SUGAR OR MILK.

½ cup walnut meats. 2 egg substitutes. ½ cup milk substitute. ½ teaspoonful saccharine. 1 tablespoonful baking powder. 1 cup flour. Add a little cinnamon. Bake as drop cakes. Flour the baking pan instead of greasing it.

OAT MEAL CAKES.

1 egg. ½ cup milk substitute. ½ teaspoonful saccharine. Oatmeal to thicken. 1 tablespoonful baking powder. Beat together and bake as drop cakes.

RAISIN BREAD.

½ cake yeast. 1 cup potato water. 2 tablespoonfuls of raisins. 1 pound of flour. Set sponge at night and bake one hour.

HOW BERLIN IS AMUSING ITSELF IN WAR TIME.

When war was first declared all the theaters and amusement places in Berlin were closed, and it was not until after Christmas of that year that they were opened again. Now everything is open except the dance halls, for dancing is prohibited during the war. The famous resort "Palais de Danse" is closed up and its outside is all covered with posters asking for money for the Red Cross.

The theaters in Berlin are very well attended. As many times as I went to the opera, which was quite often, every seat in the house was taken. The greater part of every audience are soldiers who are glad to spend some portion of their furloughs forgetting the horrors of war and life in the trenches. The operas are as brilliant as before the war, but many of the young stage favorites are missing, for even the matinee idol must take his turn at the front. Several of the popular actors have been killed.

One can always hear the French and Italian operas, and at concerts the music of the great Russian composers. They do not prohibit the music of enemy composers, and one can hear Verdi, Mascagni and Gounod. However, "Madame Butterfly" and "Bohème" were never given to my knowledge. I do not know whether it was because they had no singers for these operas which are great favorites, or whether it was because of the nationality of the composer.

Just before I left Berlin I saw a wonderful production of "Aïda," and the principal singers were Poles from the Royal Opera House in Warsaw. The singers were received with the wildest enthusiasm. All the cast except the Poles sang in German, and the Poles sang in Polish. The duets sounded very funny. Two of the Polish singers were invited to come and sing permanently in Berlin. They both declined. The man, who has one of the most magnificent voices I ever heard, because he loves Warsaw too much to leave it, and the woman because she did not want to be tied up in Berlin with a five-years' contract, as she wants to come to America as soon as the war is over. There is more or less a movement in Germany to taboo the German singers who are in America, and they also want to prevent all their new young singers from coming to us. It will be a very hard task, for America is the aim of every German singer, and no feeling of patriotism will keep them at home.

Since the war many new stars have arisen, and many new operas have been played. From Bulgaria comes a young singer by the name of Anna Todoroff, and she has taken Berlin by storm. Several boy wonders have sprung up, the greatest being a little boy from Chili, Claude Arrau.