The whole country suffers
from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not
themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do
in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five
times in the year, on their chief holidays,--namely, Shrove Tuesday,
Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on
but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be
many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of
late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel
the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too long in this case
to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having
left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"--they
attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of
beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on.
It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality
creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during
the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with
manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the
remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security
against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which
seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people.
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