74

DOMESTIC MANNEKS OF THE HRUSSIANS.

course of taraxacum tea ; and on Üie banks of tlie Rinne maybe secn whole fields füll of tlie bitter weed growing as tliick asour clover.

The Rhenish cooking is the worthy counterpart of theRhenish meat. ¥e know not whether the custom arises froma sense of the antiquity of the oxen used as food, or from avulgär belief in the nutritive qualites of soup, and a desireto obtain two dishes out of one piece of " fiesh;" but not aJoint—even though it be but a few pounds weight—evercoraes to a Prussian table that has not been boiled for some fivehours, and then baked for one—the pot liquor being servedup at dinner and supper as potage, and the remaining massof baked, stringy fibres, dignified by the name of roastmeat (Braten).

Of course it is idle to teil the reader, whose palate candistinguish a decoction of burnt acorns from that of roastedcoffee, that by the Prussian culinary process the entireJuices and flavour of the food have been extracted as per-fectly as if the Joint had been submitted to a chemicalOperation — for such the cooking really is; while the Juicesthemselves, by being diluted with water, have not only lost alltheir savoury character, but have actually been deprived oftheir nutritive property: for the experiments of Magendielong ago proved to the thinking world, that soup is incapableof sustaining the life of a dog—a hound fed upon it sickeningin a week and dying in ten days.

There is an old story which says, that if a person be blind-folded it is impossible to distinguish port from sherry, whensipped one after another. Nevertheless, with the eyes wideopen, and the palate scrutinising every morsel that is put intothe mouth, we will defy the keenest English taste to teilwhether they are eating Prussian beef, or veal, or chicken,