The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-02-03
What People Are Eating
In Germany At Present

nave mad at times.
| Cow beets and straw bread-can
/ you imagine human beings keeping
alive on such fare?
Well, German people did, and be-
| cause they did, one must feel that
no privation, no pressure of any
sort. can be made severe enough to
start general revolt among the
civil population Of the empire. If
ever revolution comes in Germany.
it must have soldiers in it. And
the soldiers will never revolt for
lack of food or clothes. They have
plenty of both.
Cow beet is American for man
gel-wurzel. 1t is raised both in
America and Germany as feed for
pigs. 1t is a hardy vegetable, cordy
and unpalatable, but more or less
rich in sugar, and, therefore. nutri-
tive.
Straw bread is made from a sort
of flour or bran produced by grind
ing the dried stalks of wheat and
rye. 1t is mixed with rye flour, and
the combination is most unpalatable,
although not entirely lacking in nu-
triton.
The COW beet and straw bread are
off the German bill of fare at pres
ent-a proof that conditions IN Ger
many are better today than they
We're at 1.-THE close of last winter. Il
was then that the potato stores be-
came exhausted and recourse was
had to the COW beet
The advent of the COW beet into
the realm of human foods has gwen
that lowly vegetable a prominence
in German politics that it could new
have attained in a million years or
appeasing cattle hunger.
In December. 1917, a meeting OF
40 mayors of leading German cities
was held to declare war on the COW
beet and erect barricades against It's
return.
The German people grow bitter at
the mere mention of the COW beet. In
hate it ranks second only to Eng
land.
The COW beet, it seems was put
into the soil unobtrusively, and in
secluded sections Of the empire, by
order of the food directors, when it
became apparent that the potato crop
would not be sufficient to last
through the winter of 1916. The
mayors demanded to know whether
any such action had been found nee
essary in 1917.
They declared most positively that
their people would have no more of
said they, to restrict further the po-
tato allowance now, than to test the
temper of the people with the cow
beet, should the potato supply fail
toward the end of the winter. Furth-
er. said the mayors, it was common
talk that the aristocratic agrarians,
Or land owners, were feeding pota-
toes to their pigs. If that were so,
how could the potato supply last?
hn L.
potato crop would prove ample for
the year, and the report about the
agrarians was denied. The cow
beet, the mayors were told, was off
the menu for good The mayors
adjourned and went home satisfied.
Now wouldn't it be an odd page
in history if the calculations again
should go awry, and the COW beet
should come back, bringing with it
the germ of revolution?
Living conditions in Austria are
vastly worse than in Germany. In
Switzerland / met an American fam
lily who had lived Is years in Austria
and who had left there at the time
America declared war on that coun-
try. The women of the family had
Kept household accounts carefully
over period of years. They said
that in 1917 it cost the family five
times as much to live as in 1916.
Even at that they said, 1--WE
were net able to live as we'll as in
Bread and potatoes are the only
foods that can be counted upon nv
the mass of the people in Austria.
ana q, even their supply is limited.
The Austrian government has held
doWn the prices of these two articles.
but has been compelled to cut the al
lowances to a point that makes liv-
ing difficult If these two foods
were allowed to follow their natural
economic tendencies, millions of Aus
TRANS would be without food alto
gether.
Conditions in Hungary are better
than in Austria or Germany. 1t is
a common practice for Austrians to
go to Budapest to get a square meal.
The Germans have the same quaint
custom, only they go over the line
into Swiss cities.
There are thousands of Germans
in Basel, Berne and Zurich. Of
course, most of them have duties.
furtive enough, no doubt. of one sort
or another, to perform. But to them
about the eating and drinking places,
one might readily believe they were
there solely to regain their waist
lines and to fill out their collars.
Of course there is not now, nor
has there ever been, an actual star
walton IL Germany or Austria.
What happens is that the indiyi-
dual IS weakened by long lack of nu-
trltive food and becomes prey to
disease.
The con1monest of all disease in
the central empires now is a new
which the newspapers call
1t is not unlike
dropsy. which had its origin in fam
inc, as we see the disease in America.
The chief victims of this disease
are persons between the ages of 40