The name carries a clue to its likely origins not in Vienna, but in the city of Salzburg. Nockerl is a term designed to confuse, since it may refer simply to a Gnocchi-like shape of a food item, but also to a form of dough made of eggs, flour and (usually) butter.Ī Salzburger Nockerl falls somewhere between a miniature soufflé and a sweet dumpling (with a hint of meringue). The unpleasant racial connotations mean it’s increasingly likely to be described as a “chocolate almond soufflé” (or similar) today. This dessert enjoys considerable popularity as a very local dish, though people regard the name with less affection: Mohr im Hemd translates literally as a “Moor in a Shirt,” possibly as a nod to Shakespeare’s Othello. BuchtelĪ small hot chocolate sponge (cooked in water or steam), served in a chocolate sauce, and usually accompanied by whipped cream. And these fried delights remain the traditional parting gift for visitors to the annual Opernball. If a baker uses strawberry jam, for example, then the Krapfen becomes an Erdbeerkrapfen (Erdbeer = strawberry in German).Īs with many traditional Viennese and Austrian foods, the Krapfen has collected a whole series of myths, stories, anecdotes, and legends around itself.Īllegedly, the Vienna Kongress of 1815 saw both the redrawing of Europe’s borders post-Napoleon and the consumption of ten million Krapfen. Other fillings must be explicitly included in the product name (actually a legal requirement). In the absence of any other information, assume your Krapfen contains an apricot jam filling. A Krapfen normally comes with just icing sugar (if anything) on top.Īlthough common at any time of year, Krapfen pop up everywhere during carnival season (Fasching), which is why an alternative name is Faschingskrapfen. Not, however, the ring version, but the solid, flattened ball version. Gemüsestrudel: ditto but filled with a selection of vegetablesīasically the Austrian doughnut.Strudel pastry filled with spinach (we add sheep’s cheese at home, too) Spinatstrudel: usually a main course among the vegetarian options.Topfenstrudel: another popular dessert that uses quark.The word strudel refers to the basic pastry and/or form, so you find various other types on menus, too.Īs with Apfelstrudel (Apfel = apple), you have a good chance of guessing the contents of the dish from the German word preceding strudel in the name. Vienna imported and adapted the dish, which likely came from the Hungarian part of the Habsburg lands, though the Hungarians themselves probably adapted a recipe brought in by invading Turks. Traditionally, Apfelstrudel uses its own strudel pastry or puff pastry, with a filling of sliced cooking apples, sultanas, roasted breadcrumbs, sugar, and cinnamon. I don’t really need to describe it, since the dish has conquered the world. (Nothing is certain in life, except for death, taxes and Apfelstrudel)Īh, right up the top of your list of desserts associated with Austria and Vienna is likely Apfelstrudel (apple strudel). But below are some of the most likely local options to appear on your restaurant or coffee house menu in Vienna. So what are typical Viennese Mehlspeisen?Īs you can imagine, the choice is huge. I’ve seen it used for everything from pancakes to strudels. Editor’s note: she never actually said that.Īnyway, Austrians talk of Mehlspeisen (literally: “flour dishes”), a vague term which seems to cover anything edible that goes with a hot beverage. When Marie Antoinette (a Habsburg archduchess before marrying into French royalty) said, “Let them eat cake,” she wasn’t being arrogant or out of touch. There is no time of day or part of a meal where cake is not an acceptable option. Take cake, for example, which you might call the true Viennese bread. Mainly because particular items the rest of the planet puts in just one category belong in all three in Vienna. Of course, the Viennese refuse to think in terms of starters, main courses, and desserts.
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