The Italian Blog

Coffee at 8 A.M. with rolls, _Kaffee Brödchen_, and butter, and this
meal he will be expected to descend to the dining-room to eat.
A slight lunch at 11 A.M., at which the German equivalent for a
sandwich, a Brödchen cut and buttered, with a slice of uncooked ham,
lachs, or cheese between the halves, makes its appearance, and a glass
of beer or wine is drunk.
Dinner (Mittagessen) is announced between 1 and 2 oclock, and is a long
meal consisting of soup, which is the water in which the beef has been
boiled; fish; a messy entrée, probably of Frankfurt sausage; the beef
boiled to rags with a _compote_ of plums or wortleberries and mashed
apples; and, as the sweet, pancakes.
Coffee is served at 4 P.M. with _Kaffee Küchen_, its attendant cake, and
at supper (Abendessen) one hot dish, generally veal, is given with a
choice of cold viands or sausages in thin slices–_leber Würst,
Göttinger Würst_, hot _Frankfurter Würst_, and black pudding.
If the above gruesome list does not warn the over-zealous inquirer, his
indigestion be on his own head.
In the south the cookery, though still indifferent, approximates more
nearly to the French bourgeois cookery.
A dinner-party at a private house of well-to-do German people is always
a very long feast, lasting at least two hours, and the cookery, though
good, is heavy and rich, and too many sauces accompany the meats. Many
of the dishes are not served _à la Russe_, but are brought round in
order that one may help ones self. Just as one is struggling into
conversation in defective German, a pikes head obtrudes itself over the
left shoulder, and it is necessary to twist in ones seat and go
through a gymnastic performance to take a helping.
Except in large cities the Germans are not given to feeding at
restaurants.
A golden rule, which may be held to apply all over Germany, is that it
is safe to take ladies wherever officers go _in uniform_.
The Rathskeller
In most German towns where there is a Rathhaus (a town hall) one finds
the Rathskeller, where beers or wine, according to the part of the
country, are the principal attraction, single dishes, cutlets, steaks,
cold meats, oysters, caviar being served more as an adjunct to the drink
than as an orthodox meal. The most noted of these Rathskeller are at
Bremen, Lübeck, and Hamburg, and that at Bremen is first in importance.
It is a mediæval Gothic hall, built 1405-1410, and it holds the finest
stock of Rhine and Moselle wine in the world. The wine is kept in very
old casks. One of the cellars is of particular interest as being the
“Rose” one, where the magistrates used to sit in secret conclave, _sub
rosa_, beneath the great rose carved upon the ceiling. The German
Emperor generally pays a visit to the Rathskeller when he visits Bremen.
In the Lübeck Rathskeller is the “admirals table,” said to be made from
a plank of the ship of the last Admiral of Lübeck, who flourished in
1570; and even more interesting than the Rathskeller is the
Schiffergesellschaft, with its strange motto and its even stranger
sign.
Beer-Cellars
Throughout Germany one meets in every town the large establishments,
beautifully decorated in the “Old German” style, of the various beer
companies, most of which are Munich ones, the Lowenbrau, the
Pschorrbrau, the Münchener Hofbrau, and others. Be careful to close the
metal top of your Schopps if you are drinking with German companions,
for if you do not they have the right, by the custom of the country, to
place their mugs on the top of the open one and demand another “round.”
If when you have emptied your mug, you leave it with the lid open, the
waiter, without asking any questions, takes it away and refills it.