A cafe in ViennaGo to Vienna for the Food
Although
he would probably never admit it, I think one of the reasons my husband likes
to visit Vienna at least four to five times a year is the food.
The
opulent heritage of a splendid past, the music, the art and the architecture
all make Vienna a wonderful place to visit. If you throw in Viennese cuisine
and pastries, then it is a done deal.
Viennese
cuisine has the distinction of being the only cuisine in the world named after a
city.
We are
not talking fancy sauces as in French food, or exotic ingredients as in
Vietnamese or Indian cuisine. We are talking meat and potatoes—but, oh so good.
A faux pas at
the Sacher Hotel
The
art of Viennese cuisine, very labor intensive and meticulous, is to take basic
ingredients and make them special. Despite the changes brought about by
modernization, Vienna remains a deeply conservative city and that is also true
as far as food is concerned. The Viennese like their traditional food so much
that you don’t find as many Chinese, Japanese, Indian or other ethnic
restaurants in Vienna as you might in other major Western cities.
Sacher TorteThe
Viennese take their food very seriously. At the famous Sacher Hotel restaurant
I once made a cultural faux pas by asking for a condiment of minced horseradish
and apples to go with my order of Wiener Schnitzel. The condiment is
traditionally served with Tafelspitz, a different dish. The waiter made no
attempt to be polite to the stupid tourist who was asking for this travesty.
You would think I had asked for shoe leather or a gardening tool. He raised an
eyebrow, told me off and refused to bring it.
A
result of many influences.
The
Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled over dozens of ethnic groups, and Viennese
cuisine is an amalgam of all of them with influences from many directions. The
famous Wiener Schnitzel, considered to be the epitome of Viennese cooking, was copied
from the Milanese when the Italian region of Lombardy was under Habsburg rule
in the 18th and 19th centuries. (There it is known as
Cotoletta Milanese.)
The
great array of dumplings came from the Czech Republic. Potato and sauerkraut
dishes were adopted from Germany and sour cream cookery and soups from Poland.
The Hungarians contributed the use of paprika and the goulash as well as the
strudel, even though the Viennese will probably not admit it.
Strudel is thin
dough rolled and filled with apples or curds. As far as the Viennese are concerned,
the dough for the strudel has to be so thin you can read a newspaper through
it.
The
Turks are responsible for the icon of Viennese culture, the coffee house. They
left sacks filled with coffee beans when they retreated from Vienna after their
defeat in 1683. The Viennese thought the sacks were filled with camel fodder,
but a clever adventurer who had been to Istanbul and knew how to roast and
grind the beans, gathered them all up and started the first coffee house.
FrankfurterThe sausage is another staple of the Austrian diet although
strangely enough the Germans call their sausages Wieners, after Vienna, and
Austrians call their sausages Frankfurters, after the city in Germany.
I have seen people leaving the
opera dressed in tux and evening gowns stand in line to get a sausage on a
small paper plate with a bit of mustard and eat it standing up.
You
can’t go wrong
Excellent
Austrian food can be found in the countryside in almost any inn, hotel, restaurant,
or café that you may happen on. In that way, it is similar to Italy where you
can get excellent food in any neighborhood trattoria.
The
holy trinity of Viennese cuisine is the Schnitzel, the Kaiserschmarren and the
Tafelspitz, but also add the apple strudel to the list
The
Schnitzel does not require much explanation. It is a veal cutlet pounded thin,
rolled in flour, in beaten eggs and then in bread crumbs and deep fried until
golden brown.
The
other two dishes are connected to Kaiser Franz Joseph, who reigned over the
monarchy for 66 years.
The
story goes that the emperor descended to the palace kitchens one night when he
had a hankering for a pancake. The cook, befuddled by the presence of the
emperor, ruined the pancakes and they looked a mess. She was going to throw the
batch out when Franz Josef said he wanted them just like that. Since then he
ordered the scrambled, fried pancakes with raisins and powdered with sugar regularly
and the dish, served with stewed plums, was named for him, hence the “Kaiser”
in the name Kaiserschmarren.
The
Tafelspitz, or boiled beef, was the Kaiser’s favorite meal. He lunched on it every
day and it had to be so tender that he could eat it with his fork only. It was
served with great ceremony in state dinners and on festive occasions.
My
favorite restaurant
It is
still served, with a choice of about 12 different cuts of meat, with great
ceremony in my favorite restaurant in Vienna, Plachutta. Boiled beef sounds
boring and tasteless, but at Plachutta they make it tender and delicious. You
can cut the meat with a fork. They serve it in a copper kettle, which is kept
warm on the table.
First you are served the beef broth enriched by carrots and
root vegetables. Then, the waiters serve the beef, which has been kept hot and
juicy in the broth. This is accompanied by marrow bone, sautéed black bread,
chive sauce, apple-horseradish sauce, fried potatoes and creamed spinach.
After
all that, one would think there would be no room for desert. Wrong!
Apfelstrudel mit VanillesauceThe
deserts in Vienna are so good, the selection at the café display windows so
tempting, that you end up rationalizing that you will start a diet as soon as
you return home. There are literally hundreds of deserts and pastries to choose
from.
There are six basic types of strudels served in Vienna’s cafes; the
classic one filled with apples, but also cheese, cream, poppy seeds, cherry and
plum. Now you can begin to understand why it is so difficult to pass up.
My
husband can praise Vienna’s architecture, extol its culture and go into
raptures over the city’s beauty all he wants, but I am sure I know the real
reason why he likes to go there.
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