Naturally the cook was a busy woman; but she did nothing, else. Service is cheap ; a boy was her assistant in all parings and choppings and poundings, and two other servants, with duties as sharply defined, performed the other household duties. The event of the day for the Hausfrau was her morning's marketing, — a hand-to-hand con- flict with the crowd in the open market-place, into which the women thronged, every one known to her, and submitting to the inevi- table beating-down with a calmness born of the fact that she knew, and they knew, that the price in the beginning had been double or treble the actual value. The same process made part of the interview with the butcher, big and burly like his order the world over, and prepared for any amount of brow-beating from the "Gnadige Frau." This was city housekeeping, made easy by the markets and shops; but even in the country the order is much the same, since no one is so remote from towns, large or small, as to be deprived altogether of a market. The country housekeeper lays in a larger supply of dried or potted meats and 60 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. fruits, but her storeroom seldom shows such elaborate array of jam-pots and pickle-jars as marks the English housekeeper. This, however, is matter of individual conviction. The Frau Rath made a few very rich sweet- meats only for special occasions. Her next neighbor, on the contrary, a charming and highly cultivated woman, delighted in rows of jars in the pretty blue and gray stone-ware which the American longs to carr}^ home, and had innumerable receipts for varieties of pickling, drying, and preserving. Much sweet is, however, generally regarded as per- nicious, save the light dessert, and thus small time is given to their preparation. Meat and beer are the important elements, and who has not these is felt to be unhappy indeed. Nevertheless, a vegetarian society flourishes and increases ; and there are hints that the fogginess of German thought, on some points, is due to too much heavy feed- ing, and that the German menu needs recon- struction as much as some phases of German manners. With this we have here nothing to do, our main point being to demonstrate that good cooking in Germany can be found GERMANY. 6 1 in spite of Julian Hawthorne's declaration, in his "Saxon Studies," that "to be a thor- ough German cook requires only a callous conscience, a cold heart, a confused head, coarse hands, and plenty of grease. " CHOICE DISHES FROM GERMANY. Whoever has once eaten any of the jellied salads to b^ found at good German tables wonders always thereafter why anything so good should be quite unknown to America at large. They are quite as much a delight to the eye as to the palate, and, since they can be varied indefinitely, should commend themselves to the housekeepers who sigh for new possibilities of combination. These sour jellies are of two orders, one made in the old-fashioned manner, from calves' feet, which German matrons insist give a jelly unrivalled by any form of gelatine. But calves* feet mean much unnecessary work, and no better result actually, and so the form with gelatine is given, — a form which can be used with either fish, flesh, or fowl, though specially adapted to fish. 62 IN FOREIGN KITCHENS.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Naturally the cook was a busy woman; but she did nothing, else. Service is cheap ; a boy was her assistant in all parings and choppings and poundings, and two other servants, with duties as sharply defined, performed the other household duties. The event of the day for the Hausfrau was her morning's marketing, — a hand-to-hand conflict with the crowd in the open market-place, into which the women thronged, every one known to her, and submitting to the inevitable beating-down with a calmness born of the fact that she knew, and they knew, that the price in the beginning had been double or treble the actual value. The same process made part of the interview with the butcher, big and burly like his order the world over, and prepared for any amount of brow-beating from the "Gnadige Frau." This was city housekeeping, made easy by the markets and shops; but even in the country the order is much the same, since no one is so remote from towns, large or small, as to be deprived altogether of a market. The country housekeeper lays in a larger supply of dried or potted meats and fruits, but her storeroom seldom shows such elaborate array of jam-pots and pickle-jars as marks the English housekeeper. This, however, is matter of individual conviction. The Frau Rath made a few very rich sweetmeats only for special occasions. Her next neighbor, on the contrary, a charming and highly cultivated woman, delighted in rows of jars in the pretty blue and gray stone-ware which the American longs to carry home, and had innumerable receipts for varieties of pickling, drying, and preserving. Much sweet is, however, generally regarded as pernicious, save the light dessert, and thus small time is given to their preparation. Meat and beer are the important elements, and who has not these is felt to be unhappy indeed. Nevertheless, a vegetarian society flourishes and increases ; and there are hints that the fogginess of German thought, on some points, is due to too much heavy feeding, and that the German menu needs reconstruction as much as some phases of German manners. With this we have here nothing to do, our main point being to demonstrate that good cooking in Germany can be found in spite of Julian Hawthorne's declaration, in his "Saxon Studies," that "to be a thorough German cook requires only a callous conscience, a cold heart, a confused head, coarse hands, and plenty of grease. " CHOICE DISHES FROM GERMANY. Whoever has once eaten any of the jellied salads to b^ found at good German tables wonders always thereafter why anything so good should be quite unknown to America at large. They are quite as much a delight to the eye as to the palate, and, since they can be varied indefinitely, should commend themselves to the housekeepers who sigh for new possibilities of combination. These sour jellies are of two orders, one made in the old-fashioned manner, from calves' feet, which German matrons insist give a jelly unrivalled by any form of gelatine. But calves* feet mean much unnecessary work, and no better result actually, and so the form with gelatine is given, — a form which can be used with either fish, flesh, or fowl, though specially adapted to fish.

In foreign kitchens