Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-12-22
Germany's Standard
DIET Proves Handicap
To 0vereating
Two Dollars Buys No
Meal to Compare With
s. Cents in Emporio
(Thirty-Sirth OF a Series.)
BY WILLIAM L. WHITE.

BY WILLIAM L. WHITE.
BERLIN (By Air MaiD.- Il hit
this town something short of a
month ago and since then have been
living on the standard German food
card ration, although I could have
taken an extra slug of meat and
butter cards which the Propaganda
Ministerium here passes out to all
foreign newspapermen.
And now I can tell you what
happens on this standard German
diet. Since I have been here I
have lost about five pounds of
excess weight which I picked up in
Italy through overeating on the
theory that Germany was close to
the starvation point.
I find, however, that If you have
enough money to eat at the big
hotels and best restaurants pat
ronized by foreigners, high govern
ment officials, army officers and
prosperous industrialists, you can eat
very well indeed so far as quality
Is concerned, but also that, while
you get enough, it is difficult to
overeat of this good food, although
there are usually few plump Ger
mans sitting around who seem to
have surmounted the obstacles.
Fish and Fowl Not Rationed.
Eating at these hotels on the
German food card rations is no hard
ship. OF course, I am allowed only
500 grams (about one pounO of
meat per week and in bulk this is
the equivalent of five New York
filet mignon steaks-the little pink
ones which usually come to you on
toast-or five pork chops. Five
meat meals a week doesn't look like
a lot, but remember that at the
Adlon or the Bristol I can have for
my meatless meals an ample serving
of huge broiled goose-livers, or some
chicken or filet of sole or a sea
trout, because fish and fowl are not
classified as meat and are not
rationed.
However, in order to walk out of
the Adlon or the Bristol with a
comfortably full stomach at lunch,
your meal will have cost you not
much less than 81, figuring the mark
at it's standard price of 40 cents,
and if you have wine, of course, it
will be more. And at the Polka Dot
Cafe in Emporia, Kans., where I
ate most of my lunches this summer
for IS cents, Bobb DabbS will lay
you out a tasty meal with the same
nourishing ingredients.
OF course, the Polka Dot cooks
don't know all the tricks of the
chefs at the Adlon and the Bristol,
for the Polka Dot is just darned
good clean small town air-condi-
toned cafe, and doesn't pretend to
rate with the Waldorf and the Plaza,
as do these two German hotels.
No Butter Worries There.
But at the Polka Dot the cute
little kid with the Joan Crawford
hair-do is constantly walking be-
tween the tables with her tray of
hot corn bread or hot rolls, all you
want, free for the taking, and a
cute little smile along with it, and
if you use up all your butter on the
hot corn bread Bobb is sure to slide
another couple of pats to you down
the shiny counter, and no nonsense
about how many bread cards or food
cards or fat cards you can afford
to lay out for this particular meal
and still come out even at the end
of the week.
Now am healthy and not under
nourished, but I am telling you that
If Bobb Dabbs could fix it up to open
q branch of the Polka Dot Cafe on
Inter den Linden, and lay out for
IS cents, which is less than mark
lust what he does in Emporia, Kans
in "a hours his place would be Sc
crowded with general staff officers
and Nazi big shots and Gestapo
chiefs that he could even sell stand
ing room, and the Adlon and the
Bristol would be more deserted than
Antarctica, or Pompeii.