n family monument, which is called here a stove,
--and which, by the way, is much more agreeable than your hideous black
and air-scorching cast-iron stoves,--and seen that the feather-beds
under which we were expected to lie were thick enough to roast the
half of the body, and short enough to let the other half freeze, we
determined to try for a season the regular German cookery, our table
heretofore having been served with food cooked in the English style
with only a slight German flavor. A week of the experiment was quite
enough. I do not mean to say that the viands served us were not
good, only that we could not make up our minds to eat them. The
Germans eat a great deal of meat; and we were obliged to take meat
when we preferred vegetables. Now, when a deep dish is set before
you wherein are chunks of pork reposing on stewed potatoes, and
another wherein a fathomless depth of sauerkraut supports coils of
boiled sausage, which, considering that you are a mortal and
responsible being, and have a stomach, will you choose? Herein
Munich, nearly all the bread is filled with anise or caraway seed; it
is possible to get, however, the best wheat bread we have eaten in
Europe, and we usually have it; but one must maintain a constant
vigilance against the inroads of the fragrant seeds. Imagine, then,
our despair, when one day the potato, the one vegetable we had always
eaten with perfect confidence, appeared stewed with caraway seeds.
This was too much for American human nature, constituted as it is.
Yet the dish that finally sent us back to our ordinary and excellent
way of living is one for which I have no name. It may have been
compounded at different times, have been the result of many tastes or
distastes: but there was, after all, a unity in it that marked it as
the composition of one master artist; there was an unspeakable
harmony in all its flavors and apparently ununitable substances. It
looked like a terrapin soup, but it was not. Every dive of the spoon
into its dark liquid brought up a different object,--a junk of
unmistakable pork, meat of the color of roast hare, what seemed to be
the neck of a goose, something in strings that resembled the rags of
a silk dress, shreds of cabbage, and what I am quite willing to take
my oath was a bit of Astrachan fur. If Professor Liebig wishes to
add to his reputation, he could do so by analyzing this dish, and
publishing the result to the world.

And, while we are speaking of