His mother, Hanne, sells vegetables and fruit at the market and Jacob helps her by carrying home the bags for the customers.
One day, an ugly old woman, who has a long, crooked nose and a thin neck, comes to his mother's stand to buy some herbs.
After he eats the soup, Jacob feels like he is falling asleep and is dreaming about living and working as a squirrel in the woman's house.
After this rejection, Jacob decides to try his luck as a cook and visits the duke (Herzog) of “Frankistan”, who is known as a gourmet (the backstory plays in the Orient, where a German tells this fairy tale from his homeland, the country of the Franks).
The nobleman enjoys his meal but then orders the queen of all pâtés, a Souzeraine, which Jacob does not know how to make but fortunately Mimi does.
In the pre-March era, Germany was torn into several different small countries, which were governed by their arbitrary king, duke or earl.
In Dwarf Nose his criticism also becomes obvious through the names of the dishes, which the bewitched boy has to prepare for his nobleman: the Danish soup, red hamburger dumplings and – upon a special request of the earl – “the queen of all dishes, the pâté Souzeraine”, a clear allusion to the political expression suzerainty.
It is typical for a family tale by Hauff that Jacob marries no utopian princess, but Mimi, an ordinary woman (daughter of the wizard).