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And Now There Was This Woman, Austria: My Viennese Affair, Fall 2014

“Strangely enough these were women in history, Louise de la Valliere, Catherine of Russia, Madame de Maintenon, Catherine de’ Medici, and two women out of literature, Anna Karenina and Catherine Heathcliff; and now there was this woman Austria.” – Djuna Barnes in Nightwood

My introduction to Austrian cuisine dates back to 1984, when I spent a week of what remained of my summer holiday with my parents in Tyrol, in the western part of Austria. I had just spent a month in a small English town called Thame, in Oxfordshire, boarding with a local family and going to the school their children went to. After a steady diet of sandwiches and cold cuts, I was ravenous for good food, for I always had a big appetite.

In Tyrol, we stayed in a small, sleepy town called Seefeld, which only came alive during winter, when it became a full-fledged ski resort. A friend of my mother’s, Katja Rass, owned a lovely B&B on the foot of the hill that looked out over a green pasture, with a postcard-perfect backdrop of the Alps. She had let us stay there, free of charge, and I can’t remember a happier memory from my teenage years.

It was during that week that I was introduced to such Austrian specialties as tafelspitz (boiled beef in broth, served with horseradish sauce), the closest thing Austria has to a national dish; zwiebelrostbraten (roast beef served with gravy, garnished with fried onion rings); leberknodelsuppe (beef liver-ball soup), kaiserschmarren (shredded pancake, sprinkled with powdered sugar, served hot with fruit compote, usually plum), and, of course, the famous Wiener schnitzel (thin, breaded and fried veal, or pork).

The long, complicated names didn’t bother me at all for my father, who studied architecture in Berlin in the fifties, speaks fluent German and often peppers his speech with German words. And because he was quite the cook himself, I grew up with bratkartoffeln (roast potatoes), sauerkraut (sour cabbage) and hearty bread like pumpernickel as much as I did with sate, nasi goreng and soto ayam. My father and I even shared a love for the same jam, Johanisbeere (black currant), which I was told was an acquired taste. This familiarity made it easier for me to embrace the rest of the hearty Austrian repertoire, and even to turn cleaning out my plate—despite the gigantic portions—into something of a sport. We’re only twelve once!

Three Tyrolean trips later—two of which were reached from Munich through the German state of Bavaria, which meant lunch stops at a forellen haus to feast on trout pan-fried in butter and almond and tea time of topfentorte (quark or cream cheese pie) or mohnpalatschinken (crepes doused in cream sauce) with our mélange (that most Viennese of all things Viennese: half a cup of black coffee half a cup creamy milk, topped with foam)—the I was a pro. Or so I thought.

Vienna came next, and I dutifully completed my Austrian education with a quick run through the cakes—the Sacher torte, so beloved it merits its own National Day, on 5 December, apfel strudel, punschkrapfen, Malakov Torte (layered cake made with ladyfingers and cream), etc.—but I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth then. The Sacher torte was definitely too rich and too sweet for my taste, and all the other desserts seemed equally calorific. Instead, it was the humble semel—bread roll, crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside—that stole my heart. I could eat at least half a dozen of them in a day.

What also became apparent to me quite early was that if Vienna were a person, it would be a woman (just as Budapest is undoubtedly a man). Cities are funny that way; you just know.

It is now thirty years since that first trip, and I am back in Vienna, with K, who grew up here. We married in late 2011, and now with my daughter in her second year in college in the US, we have more time on our hands to go on overseas trips together. I had just returned from New York, where I had a full week of binge-eating in between attending The New Yorker Festival events, and at first didn’t think I would be able to relive my teenage culinary trip, reduced, ‘modern’ portions notwithstanding.

How wrong I was! A week in Vienna turned out to be as much a culinary week as it was a lovely stroll down memory lane—for K, that is—and a reconnection, for me, with this strangely aloof, yet beautiful city.

So here is a small taste of our experience.

CAFÉ CENTRAL

Herrengasse 14, 1010, Vienna

Tel. +43 1 5333763

CAFÉ KORB

Brandstatte 9, 1010, Vienna

Tel. +43 1 5337215

CANTINETTA ANTINORI

Jasomirgottstrasse 3-5, 1010, Vienna

Tel. +43 5337722

DEMEL CAFÉ

Kohlmarkt 14, 1010, Vienna