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A German Speisekarte: Rhein
Who that has visited the land of the three fluvial graces the Rhein, the Neckar, and the Donau-does not retain pleasant memories of some native dish partaken of amid picturesque surroundings?-a Hasenbraten, a Pfannkuchen, a duck, a Backwurst, Knackwurst, or a Wienerwürstle that fairly melts in one's mouth. How lovely those trout which were served at the Wolfsbrunnen at Heidelberg, which you savoured in the cool of the evening after seeing them caught fresh from the spring itself! The Spätzle and Nudeln and sour sauce, too, which rival the national dish of Italy; the veal cutlets and sautéd potatoes, which one never meets as perfect as in southern Germany, and that attain their supreme excellence in a summer Gasthof garden, must likewise ever be held in grateful remembrance. How golden the landscape looked through your Rhein wine Römer, how drowsily the clouds floated over the Odenwald, and how delightfully the evening breeze awoke the responsive chords of the beeches! In whatever direction one may turn, there is always a haven for the hungry and the thirsty. No hill is too high, no valley too remote for its font of refreshment, where the tap is invariably fresh and the shrine of more substantial "restoration" is seldom to be despised. On every hand one may find the welcome of an inn, as hearty as Shenstone's, and, where the nature of the surroundings will allow, one may readily verify the lines of the old poet: "Nun kommt der grüne Berg wo selbsten auch nichts fehlt, Von dem was das Gemüth ermuntert und erfreuet; Deshalb wird er auch vielfältiglich erwählet, Er hat den schönsten Stof zur grösten Fröhlichkeit." (Well stored with all that gladd'neth man, The green hill rises, cool and fair; And many a pilgrim, spent and wan, Doth quaff from font of Münchner there.) Clearly, the Gemüthlichkeit of the Germans, a word for which an equivalent scarcely exists in any other language, may be traced to the national beverages and an alimentation with which they harmonise-with golden opportunities to cultivate it in the Wirthshaus, Gasthof, restaurant, and beer-garden.
In many of the larger restaurants and beer-gardens which are conducted on a scale that is well defined by the favourite term, "kolossal," the great Speisekarte, ornately decorated and rubricated in the olden style, is grandly in evidence. A typical index to good cheer may be taken from almost any of the vast breweries of Munich, with their long lists of Braten, Wildpret, Pfannengerichte, Eierspeisen, Salat and Compots.
On some of these appears an epitome of the corps of assistants, including the white-aproned waitresses with their names and characteristics, and the great array of help that is necessary to slake the thirst and appease the hunger of a German multitude. The conclusion of the Speisekarte of the Löwenbräukeller may be cited as an example: