THE FOOD IN GERMANY.

Collecting Old Automobile Tires.

In the department stores they do not use string on small packages, and on large packages they tie the string only one way around. If the purchase is a very small object like a spool of thread or apaper of pins, it is wrapped in the bill. Many people carry their own wrapping paper with them and it is always wise to carry a piece of string. None of the department stores will deliver anything that costs less than five marks, and notices are posted everywhere asking people to carry their purchases home with them. Only one store, Borchardt's grocery store, still wraps up things as nicely as in days of peace, and when you buy anything there you are sure that the package will not come open on the street. Now they have invented a new kind of string made out of wood. It is very strong but hard to tie.

Since the very beginning of the war no one in Germany has been allowed to run his own automobile on account of the scarcity of rubber tires and gasoline. All the automobiles displayed in the store windows have tires made of cement. This is just done to make them look better. All the tires have been taken over by the military authorities. No one is allowed to ride a bicycle with rubber tires without a permit. They have invented two kinds of tires for substitutes. One kind is made of little disks of leather joined in the middle, and the other kind is made of coiled wire. Both these tires are advertised, and the advertisements read: "Don't worry, ride your bicycle in war time. Get a leather disk tire; then you don't need a permit."

For everything that is scarce in Germany they have a substitute and in this line German ingenuityseems to have no end. They have a substitute for milk calledMilfix. It is a white powder, and when mixed with water it looks like milk. It can be used in coffee or for cooking. The funny part aboutMilfixwas that when it first came out everybody scorned it, but all of a sudden there was hardly any real milk to be had, andMilfixwas put on theLebensmittelfood card, and one could only buy a small quantity of it. Then everybody was just wild to get a little bit of the precious stuff.

Then they have egg substitutes. Some brands of it are in powder form and other brands are like yellow capsules. They are very good when mixed with one real egg and make very good omelet. Then there is the meat substitute. It comes in cans and is dark brown in color. It is some kind of a prepared vegetable. It looks like chopped meat and it is said to taste like meat. They have a hundred different varieties of substitutes for coffee, and without any exception all brands ofKaffee-Ersatzare very bad.

The most unique thing on the market is the "butter stretcher." That is what they call it. It is a white powder, and they guarantee that when it is mixed with a quarter of a pound of real butter it will stretch it to half a pound. We bought some of it but we never had the courage to try it on a quarter of a pound of real butter; but many boarding-houses used it.

Every day something new bobbed up on the market.One of the finest things wasButter-BrüheandSchmalz-Brühe. It came in cans the half of which was either butter or lard and the other half was broth. It was fixed this way so it did not come under the butter card or the fat card. The cans weighed a half pound and sold for five marks. It was foreign goods from either Holland or Denmark.

Last spring there appeared on the market great quantities of "Irish stew" in cans. The Germans stood around it wondering. What was Irish stew? None of them had the slightest idea. But finally they bought it, for they said, if it was Irish it must be good. They have a substitute for sausage made out of fish. It is awful stuff with a lingering taste that lasts for days.

They have substitutes for leather, rubber, and for alcohol. They have what they call aspiritustablet, and it can be used in lamps. It is used by the soldiers in the field. As matches are very expensive they have a small apparatus of two iron pieces that when snapped make a light. As soap is very scarce in Germany hard-wood floors are cleaned with tin shavings. The shavings are rubbed over the floors with the feet, the workers wearing felt shoes.

A Collection of Copper.

All over Germany soap is used very sparingly. Clothes are put to soak a week before wash day and each day they are boiled a little. This plan saves all the hard rubbing, and when the clothes are taken out of the water the dirt falls out of them.They don't use wash-boards in Germany. Pasted everywhere in Berlin are posters which say, "Save the soap." They say to shake the soap in hot water and never let it lie in the water and always keep it in a dry place.

Most stores will sell only one spool of embroidery floss to one person at a time. If you want a second spool you must go the next day. This restriction is very hard on the German woman who loves to do fancy work.

We saved everything. When we boiled potatoes we saved the water for soup or gravy. It had more strength than clear water. We never ate eggs out of fancy dishes with grooves in them, as too much of the egg stuck in the grooves. We served everything from the cooking kettle right on our plates, so that no grease would be wasted. Many restaurants also did this, and what you ordered was brought in on the plate that you ate from. A great many people used paper napkins for every day. This saved the linen and the soap. We never threw out our coffee grounds but cooked them over and over. We weren't used to strong coffee, and these warmed-over grounds were much better thanKaffee-Ersatz.

Some people cooked rhubarb tops in the same way you cook spinach. It makes a very good vegetable. We took the pea pods from the fresh peas and scraped them and cooked them with the peas. These are really fine. It is a well-known Polish dish. The first year we were in Berlin we couldget corn starch, and we used this for thickening food instead of flour.

One of the funniest things was that you could not buy an orange unless you bought a lemon. This worked two ways. The oranges were saved and the storekeepers got rid of the lemons. I have never seen anything like the quantity of lemons in Germany—millions of lemons everywhere. Lemons, radishes and onions were three things that you could buy any time without a card and without standing in line.

Since the war, hundreds of war cook books have been printed. They are generally very practical and give excellent recipes for making cakes without butter or eggs or even flour, using oatmeal instead. They tell how to make soup out of plums, apples, pears, onions and fish. And they contain menus with suggestions of things to have on the meatless days. They save the puzzled housewife's brain much worry.

Last Christmas in Germany was known as the Christmas of a single candle, and most of the Christmas trees had only one light on the top. One has no idea of the tremendous sacrifices these people are making for their country.

In Germany I sometimes had to go to three or four different stores before I could get a spool of silk thread. Leather is so expensive that only the upper-class burgher will be able to have real leather shoes this winter; and starch is twenty marks a pound. But after all, no German will go to work with an empty dinner pail.

The German Food Commission is the most uncanny thing in all the world. Like magic it produces a substitute for any article that is scarce, it has everything figured out so that provisioning shall be divided proportionately each week, and just what each person shall receive, for everybody does not receive the same amount of food in Germany. For instance, a man or woman who does manual labor gets more bread than a man or woman who works in an office; people over sixty years get more cereals, and sick people get more butter and eggs. These people get what they callZusatzcards, besides their regular cards.

Every one in Germany is getting thin, and the German dieting system proves that much worn-outstatement that "we eat too much," for nine out of every ten Germans have never been so well in their lives as they have been since the cards have been introduced. You feel spry, active and energetic, and the annoyance is mental rather than physical, for one is constantly thinking of things to eat.

Woman Selling Ices.

The ones that are really hurt by the blockade are the growing children, and the thing that they lack and long for is sweets. Before the war, one never realized what an important role candy played in the game of life. The food commission recognizes this, and very often chocolate and puddings are given on the cards of children under sixteen years of age.

While food prices have been soaring all over the world, prices in Germany are almost down to normal level, for anything that you buy on the cardsis extremely cheap, and everything that is any good is sold on the cards. Everything that is soldohne Karte, or without a card, is either not good or so expensive that the ordinary person cannot afford to buy.

When I first came to Germany in October, 1915, there was only one card, and that was the bread card. This card was divided off in sections with the numbers 25, 50 and 100 grams. At that time the whole card was 2100 grams for each person each week. Later it was reduced to 1900 grams, and on the first of May, 1917, to 1600 grams. This last reduction was a courageous thing for the bread commission to do at this time—one of the worst months of the year before the green vegetables come in—and in Berlin a couple of thousand workers from a factory gathered on Unter den Linden. They stayed two hours, broke two windows, and then went home pacified at a pound of meat a week more and more wages.

On the bread card it takes a 50 gram section to buy a good-sized roll, a whole card to buy a big loaf of black bread, and half a card to buy a small loaf of bread. After the bread card was reduced no buns were allowed to be made in Berlin, although in the other cities they have them. Instead, they had what they called white bread, but it was almost as black as the black bread, and when buying one had to ask, "Is this white or black bread?" I thought that the bread was very good, and it was of a muchsuperior quality to what I got in Sweden where the bread card is of a less number of grams than in Germany. At the bottom of the German bread card is the flour ticket, and it allows one the choice of either 250 grams of flour or 400 grams of bread. I came out very well on my bread card, for even when I lived in a boarding-house I kept my card myself and I took my bread to the table with me. When people are invited to a meal they always take their bread and butter with them.

A Store in Charlottenburg, a Suburb of Berlin.

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 notallowed 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 wasincreased 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.

One of the First Bread-Cards.

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 fromsixty 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 anEierkuchen, a pancake of which the Germans are very fond.

TheLebensmittelor "grocery" card is a veryimportant 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.

An Asparagus Huckster.

On the first soap cards, you could get every month a cake of toilet soap, a cake of laundry soapand 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 drinkingKaffee-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 forKaffee-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 sugarbut 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 famousKaffee 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 forbiddento 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. InBerlin 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 sellingohne 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. Thehardest 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.

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 froma 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 thenevery 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.Graupenthat I have mentioned is a large coarse barley, and when I say turnips I mean what they callKohlrüben—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 andKohlrübenfor sale for feeding the monkeys. The monkeys were hungry and they gobbled up the carrots, but they absolutely refused to eat theKohlrüben, 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.

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.

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.

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 Russiancomposers. 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.

A Boat Race near Berlin, April, 1916.

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 magnificentvoices 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.

The greatest triumph of last season was Eugen d'Albert's new operaDie toten Augen, or "The Dead Eyes," and it was played several times a week. The music of the opera is lovely, entrancing, but what a strange theme—a blind woman who is married to a man she has never seen, prays unceasingly for her sight so that she can see her husband. At last her prayer is answered, and when her eyes are opened she beholds a beautiful man by her side whom she believes to be her husband. She makes love to him, and he loves her in return. The husband who was absent when his wife's sight was restored returns, and he finds his wife's lover.He challenges the man to a duel and kills him. The woman is distracted by grief. She no longer wishes to see, so she goes out and sits in the sun with her eyes wide open. She sits there until her very life is burned out. That is the end. D'Albert is a Belgian and either his fourth or fifth wife was Madame Carreño, the pianist, who died lately. His present wife is an English woman.

An Art Exhibition Showing Fritz Erler's Picture of the Crown Prince.

An American named Langswroth has written a very successful opera called "California." Perhaps it will be played in America. An old opera that was played frequently last winter in Berlin was Meyerbeer's opera "Die Afrikanerin." In spite of its age it was very popular.

The concerts are always well attended in Berlin; and Strauss, Nikisch and von Weingartner arevery popular. Each conductor has his following. Last winter Lillie Lehmann gave a concert. She is sixty years old, and her voice is still very beautiful. She does not sing very often in public and spends most of her time writing songs and teaching a few chosen pupils.

One misses the great foreign stars who always came to Berlin each season, but still they have the great artists Joseph Schwartz, Conrad Ansorge, Clara Dux, Slezak, Emil Sauer, Karl Flesch, Arthur Schnabel and scores of others.

The character of the plays has more or less changed since the war, and while comic operas are still being given, the most popular shows are of a more serious character. The greatest favorites are Strindberg, Ibsen, Brieux, Björnsen, Shaw, Wedekind and Shakespeare. A German loves Shakespeare much more than an American or an Englishman does, and last winter, all winter long, Max Reinhardt gave Shakespeare at theDeutschesTheater. In spite of Shakespeare's English origin, the plays were very well attended, and yet I do not think the audience was like the German girl that Percival Pollard told about. He made her say, "What a pity that Shakespeare is not translated into English. I should think that they would like him in London."

The play that caused the greatest sensation in Germany last season was a tragedy called "Liebe," or "Love." It was a grewsome tale of two marriedpeople. It was full of the sordidness, the horrible actualities of life. I lived at the same boarding-house with the actress that took the part of the wife in the play,Frau Anna, the main role. She was quite a frivolous young German girl, but she splendidly managed the part of a woman that had been married nine years.

A Boat Club in theGrunewaldnear Berlin.

Moving picture shows are not as popular in Germany as in America because of the high prices. In Germany it costs as much to go to a "Kino"—that is what they call a "movie"—as it does to sit in the gallery at the opera. For shows no better than our five-cent shows we had to pay two marks, and one can sit in the gallery at the Charlottenburg Opera House for ninety pfennigs.

They have their "movie stars," and one of thegreatest favorites is an American girl named Fern Andra. When I left Berlin her films were still drawing great crowds, America's entrance into the war having made no difference. They do not have Charlie Chaplin in Germany. They know him in Norway, but so far Germany has escaped. One German editor wrote, "Gott sei Dank, the war has prevented us from going Chaplin mad."

As a whole the German "movies" are not nearly so good as ours, they cannot compare with our wonderful productions. The only part that is better than ours is the music, and they always have fine orchestras of from ten to thirty men. Here in America we just drop into a "movie," but in Germany it makes a special evening's entertainment. Most of the "kinos" have restaurants attached, and in all "kinos" you must check your wraps. I often stayed away from shows just because I hated the idea of going to theGarderobeand checking my wraps.

Booty Exhibition in Berlin. Captured Air-Ships.

I saw a great number of fine art exhibitions in Germany. Germans consider an art exhibition as one of the necessities of life. Cubist art has rather gone out of date, and war art has taken its place. Such stirring pictures as these war artists have produced! Most of the best German artists have been to the front sketching, and the war productions of such artists as Fritz Erler and Walther Georgi are some of the most wonderful paintings I have ever seen. Weisgerber was another artist who hasmade blood-stirring war pictures. He was a German officer and was killed a year ago in France. He was very young, and his work was full of great promise. His work was much seen inDie Jugend.

I saw the great Berlin exhibition of art last fall. It was not nearly so interesting as the great international exhibitions that were held in Germany before the war. It was monotonous, and yet I have never seen an exhibit where so many pictures were sold. I saw hundreds and hundreds of pictures markedVerkauft.

It is surprising the number of art works of all kinds that are being bought in Germany. I often used to go to Lep's Auction Rooms where all kinds of art works were sold, at auction. The place was always crowded with bidders, and the bidding was fast and high. I went one day to a stein sale and saw 119 steins sold for nearly 4000 marks. I am no judge of porcelain, but it seemed like spending a lot of money. Another day I went with a man I knew, a German. For 100 marks he bought three odd tea-pot lids. He thought he had a great bargain, but I could not see it.

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