SUPPER.

No time of the day is more pleasant than the evening hours after the day's work is over; there is a solemn calm and quiet in them which charms both soul and body.

This time of ease and rest must not be disturbed on our part by overburdening the stomach. We eat only for the purpose of compensating for the loss experienced through our work; we should not eat more than is necessary to supply the strength lost; in other words, to give us sufficient strength to continue our labor. And as the day's work is finished, there being not much work before us, we need not take much food.

When glancing at a sleeping person and noticing his long breathing and increased perspiration, one may be led to the belief that he loses much oxygen and water during his sleep; that therefore we must provide ourselves abundantly with food before retiring to bed. This is, however, a mistake. The breath of a sleeping person is long and deep, but very slow; and his perspiring does not cause any great loss of water, but comes rather from this, that one's body during the night is more protected by covers and closed windows, etc., from draft which dries our evaporation, and therefore prevents perspiration in day-time. During sleep we need even less of bodily strength than through the day; for this reason we feel no hunger in the night, and, in spite of the long fasting, no fatigue in the morning.

From this we conclude that supper should not be a meal for the night, but merely for the last hours of the day. It should be no meal prÆnumerando, but postnumerando!

It is therefore best to choose but light dishes, which, if we wish to rest well, must be easily digested, and eaten at least two or three hours before bed-time.

For healthy people a warm supper is unnecessary; our dinner is taken warm for the purpose only of keeping the gluten and fat of the food liquid; as this kind of food, however, is not proper for supper, we need not take it at all in the evening. If we do, it is but an additional burden to the housewife, who surely has enough trouble and labor in the kitchen during the day. He who is not satisfied with a piece of bread and butter and a glass of beer, may eat a piece of cheese besides; but it must be no other kind than sour cheese—the Germans call it Schmierkaese—common cheese being too heavy for night because of its containing fat. This sour cheese, whether soft or hardened, is easily digested; it even excites the stomach like spice, especially if you eat it with caraway seeds, and thus promotes the secretion of gastric juice. The other kind of cheese is, for no other reason than that, often eaten after dinner; for, though taken by itself scarcely digestible, if eaten in very small quantity, it increases by its action upon the stomach, the quantity of gastric juice there, and, therefore, promotes digestion in general.

Should we, however, for one reason or the other, insist upon having a more substantial supper, then let us take soft-boiled eggs. The nutritive quality of eggs is equivalent to that of meat. They unite all good sides of the meat; nay, we may say here, that the most nourishing part in meat is nothing but egg-white, or, as we call it, "albumen."

We recommend soft-boiled eggs, because hard ones are difficult to digest. They are best prepared by boiling, if the water is allowed to boil first and the eggs put in afterwards. The reason of this is, that the boiling water hardens the outer part of the egg very rapidly, forming a thick crust, which prevents the heat of the boiling water from penetrating farther.

It is a custom of our country to take tea in the evening. Tea is no article of food, but it possesses the qualities of coffee; it warms the blood, increases the activity of the heart, and produces a certain freshness of the mind, which is a good remedy against ennui and sleepiness in a company or party.

And since we are speaking of ennui and sleepiness, we think it advisable to close our present subject, "The Articles of Food for the People," and we part from our readers with the full conviction that they will enjoy their real "articles of food" much better than they have relished these scientific conversations about them.