GERMAN COOKERY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR, —I have just read your article on "German Cookery," and cannot refrain from seizing my pen. I must complain of your supercilious tone and want of fairness. Really, Sir, a people who eat currant jelly with their mutton, and apple sauce with their goose, have no right to make merry over" the eccentric mixtures of meat and stewed fruit that are served at German table d'hotes," and those who extinguish their green peas in mint have no business to ridicule our green peas stewed with innocent young carrots. Your reviewer says most of our soaps are " watery compounds." He evidently writes under the subjective recol- lection of his table d'hôte experience, and no one who has dined with comfortable German families could say such a thing. Let him compare our "watery compounds" with the glue, flavoured with cayenne pepper and Harvey sauce, which is offered at your railway stations (under the name of "Refresh-
meat !") and in your hotels, and I shall not fear the comparison. Our health at least does not give way under the treatment, and if it were not for our mineral waters, where would the English stomach be ? As to your aristocratic dislike of the smell of Sauer- kraut, I treat it with the contempt which ignorance and affected gentility deserve. Why is it a noble pastime to sniff and eat high venison and high grouse, and an abomination to like Sauer- kraut? Have you ever eaten partridge with Sauerkraut? Every rational man will prefer that to the mawkish poultice which accom- panies your birds, and which civilised nations only use externally ! Excuse a little warmth of expression ; ?dais far ungut, we say. The perusal of your article has recalled to my memory many a familiar dish of my home, and forcibly reminded me of the privations we have to endure in this island, and Heinnveh has moved my eelings.—I am, Sir, &c., A GERMAN.
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