They opened a gasthaus a few years later, and by the time I was ten I was working in the kitchen with my mother. "My parents brought us to Vienna from Croatia when I was six. As they sip fruit tea and eat kipferln (croissants), Branka chops carrots and celery root for tonight's catfish soup. The boys roll their eyes, but Branka erupts with laughter. " Morgen ," she says in a deep voice, moving the mouth of the fish like a puppet's. Branka grabs a catfish head and holds it in front of her face. Just then, Ernst Jr., now 16, and Willi, 15, stumble in sleepily. The real thing, served at places like Weibel's Wirtshaus, was often beyond my means, so I'd go to such hangouts as Schnitzelwirt to have tasty, inexpensive pork schnitzel. Vienna's most famous dish, wiener schnitzel (tender veal in bread crumbs), is actually a tweak on Italy's costoletta alla milanese, supposedly imported by an Austrian field marshal who was stationed in Italy in 1848. Every now and then I'd splurge at a gasthaus, a combination pub and cafe, where I'd fuel up on semmelknodl (bread dumplings, a Czechoslovakian specialty) and goulash, a gift from Hungary. With guidance from Ernst and Branka, I ate German-style sausages roasted chestnuts on the way to class and, at their house, crunchy backhendl (bread-crumbed fried chicken). I couldn't afford such extravagances then, but even my modest tastes of Vienna were memorable-and, like so much of Vienna's food, reflected the influences of the lands the city once ruled. "I used to live on this stuff."įor many people, the flavor of Vienna means elegant cakes, like the city's beloved sachertorte, or a fancy pastry from the Demel bakery, or hearty meats like tafelspitz-boiled beef served with its vegetable-infused broth, creamed spinach, browned potatoes, and apple-horseradish and cream-chive sauces. "You have to taste this," I tell my brother, handing him a steaming, buttery plateful. This is krautfleckerln, the warm, comforting food I've been looking for, not only to drive the chill from my bones but to give me that remembered flavor of Vienna. We're checking out the stalls filled with antique ornaments and wooden figurines when I spot it: a big black pan full of chopped cabbage and pasta. It's not, you know…," she says, lifting her shoulders to her ears, the international sign for "packed like sardines". The Schonbrunn market, one of several Christmas markets in Vienna-including the touristy but undeniably majestic-looking market in front of the Rathaus (city hall)-is Branka's favorite. With us are his wife, Branka, and my brother Neil, whom I have dragged along on this trip in hopes of sparing us both a holiday at home, with our large and loving family asking a million questions about his recent divorce and my umpteenth breakup. "I see the other crazies are out," Vienna native and my good friend Ernst Franz says to me. Even with rain spitting down on a nearly freezing evening, the Christmas market in the courtyard of Vienna's Schloss Schonbrunn, a former Hapsburg palace, is filled with shoppers.
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