Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-09-29

1t looked as though chalk had been
stirred in.
Substitute for Eggs
For eggs the substitute was a little
yellow disc, about one-fourth of an
inch in diameter and one-fourth of
an inch thick. When put into food
1t gave yellow color and thickened
1t little as egg would do.
The artificial honey was good, al
though have no idea of what it was
made. The substitute for pudding
was substance which looked like
glue. You stirred it into water and
1t became pink, and thick and pasty.
1t didn't taste bad. but you had to
be hungry to eat it. There was no
gelatine tp be had.
We did have lots of barley, but
barley without meat and with no salt
soon gets tiresome. We had lots of
onions, too. Every night, almost,
would eat boiled onion on a piece
or bread. 1t was nourishing, but, it,
too, grew tireSome.
Since l have come home, barley.
onions, spinach and lettuce are off
my menus. L had enough of them
on the other side.
OF course we never got any cakes.
The macaroons of which the Ger
mans are so fond and which usually
are so plentiful have become very
scarce. You can buy them, but they
are $3.50 pound.
They have a substitute for pepper
there, but it is as good as nothing. l
don't know what it is made of, but 1t
doesn't flavor at all.
Making Dumplings
one thing we did make that I
liked. Our bread cards entitled us to
so much bread or flour, whichever we
Wanted-we could not have both.
Sometimes we got flour-black flour.
OF course, that is all there was. We
would get an egg, and make a dough
from the flour, water and egg. Then
we would put bit of meat and an
onion in water and boil 1t. When il
was boiling hot we would drop the
dough in by spoonfuls and make
dumplings. This dish was a great
luxury, though, for it took our allow
ance OF meat, flour and egg all at
once, but 1t certainly was good.
Cheese was IA rarity. Once in a
long time we would be told that we
could have n portion of cheese.
have stood five hours I'm line waiting
for mine. 1t would be less than one
fifth of pound when 1 got IL. and
often hard and stale, but / did value
IL. for Ii was little bit different from
the eternal sameneSs of the things
we usually had.
When we got vegetables we rarely
got them fresh-or fresh fruits. They
always were evaporated, and very
hard. We would soak them in water
all night and cook them for over an
hour sometimes for two or three
hours the next day. They never
tasted like fresh vegetables or fruits.
They were rather insipid and tough.
If we could have secured good
quality of the things we did have to
eat, it would not have been SO bad
But they were things that, ordinarily.
vt home, we would have thrown out.
How the very, very poor lived,
don't know. l heard that the gov
ernment kept them.
Government Kitchens
For the middle class, the peop1e
who were not beggars and yet who
could not afford to pay the regular
prices for food. the government es-
ia blished a great kitchen in different
parts of the city. 1 suppose the same
was done all over Germany. I am
familiar only with what was done in
Berlin.
In this kitchen were big kettles
and into these kettles were colIcc-
ton of the poorer qualities of yepe-
tables, the tops of garden truck. and
all sorts of scraps. All this was made
into stew and twice day the oconle
who could not afford to buy at the
stores came here and paid 80 pfcn-
nigs, about ~ cents, for bowl of
this.
Their bread. meat and potato cards
were taken away from them. of
course, so they neither could give
them to other people or get things to
eat on the side by means of them. I