Viennese Food and Wine

by Susanne Marie Servin, Herzerl Tours

The term Viennese cuisine (Wiener Küche), makes you think of exquisite dishes of multinational origin food and the splendid, light wine that goes with it. You can truthfully say that Viennese cooking is the origin of all fusion cuisine. Looking back, we find that the Habsburg Dynasty once held sway over most of Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Russia, Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain. While all of these countries are quite different from each other in culinary aspects, each contributed something to Viennese cooking arts.

The Viennese take their food quite seriously, many still maintaining a five-meals-a-day routine.  Breakfast is continental, with excellent coffee and the world-famous "Vienna rolls" or "das Kipferl," whose half-moon form is a reminder of the Turkish occupations. These are eaten with butter and marmalade. Since most Viennese rise early and start work at 8 a.m., it’s understandable that the pangs of hunger begin to gnaw at them between 9 and 10 a.m.. This, then, is the time for the "Gabelfrühstück" (mid-morning snack), which could be Liptauer (cheese spread) and dark bread. A wine to accompany the cheese spread could be a Grüner Veltliner. This is the premier white wine grape variety of Austria consisting of a third of all whites grown in Austria. Grüner Veltliner works well with any manner of spice (chives, paprika, caraway), saltiness (capers, pickles and anchovy), plus onions, sour cream and cottage cheese. Grüner Veltliner is very much like drinking "minerals" and is so varietally intense as to stand on its own.;

Then comes lunch, which is usually the main meal of the day. There is soup, meat, vegetables and potatoes or rice, noodles or dumplings, dessert and coffee. The meat part of the meal could be Schnitzel, a veal cutlet breaded and then fried in fat. There are scores of varieties: Pariser Schnitzel, Schnitzel a la Holstein, or the Pustza Schnitzel. And of course there is the wonderful Pork Gulyas served with Nockerl.  A wine to go along with the pork dish can either be an Austrian riesling (which tends to have a firm, acidic structure and can take on honeyed, rounded flavors with a little age) or a Blaufrankisch (which is deeply colored, fruity, spicy red with marked acidity, and relative to the pork, gentle tannins).

In the middle of the afternoon, between four and five, the Viennese are dedicated to the "Jause" which consists of coffee/tea, and one of the masterpieces of chocolate, poppyseed or nut that Viennese pastry chefs create. Gugelhupf, torte or cake, sometimes with whipped cream, make the Jause a small ceremony.  On the weekend, when the family gets together, the Jause affords an ambience for chatting and exchanging family news.

The Viennese were the first people on the Continent to learn how to make coffee. They learned it the hard way, from the Turks who besieged the city twice, in 1529 and 1683.  Every coffeehouse offers half a dozen kinds of coffee and variations on each particular basic kind. It is said only strangers order simply “coffee.” The cognoscenti' order their mixture by name. For example, “Fiaker” is a double espresso with a lot of cream, heated cherry brandy and powdered sugar mixed in, and a cherry on top. And don¹t forget the whipped cream (Schlagobers)!

To round out the day, there is a light evening meal which might consist of anything from a bowl of soup to omelets, and one of the sweet dumplings so dear to the heart of every Viennese – Marillenknödel (apricots wrapped in dumplings crusted with sugared breadcrumbs) or the beloved Apfelstrudel. A wine to go with the latter could be any number of the sweet wines, which are so consistently prevalent around the Neusiedlersee. The terrific sweet Trocken Beeren Ausleese of Rust are velvety, with a hint of acid (to deal with the tartness of the apples and the grated lemon peel)) but still have that necessary sweetness to go with the strudel as a dessert (to include sugar, raisins and cinnamon).

Viennese cuisine is a cuisine of great variety that creates a feeling of comfort and does not pretend to be something it isn’t. That makes it a perfect partner for Austria’s great wines and a natural contender for a section in any American gourmet's recipe collection.