The Proud Traditional Food of Vienna, Austria

Austrian traditional food is actually too tedious to prepare but worth the wait.  The Vienna food, as one happily retorts is - you can get fat in minutes!  Honestly, the food is calorie loaded and swimming in fat!  Why is that?  If you take a peek at the history of Austria, you get the idea.  The country fell on hard times and to survive, people concocted hearty meals to sustain them for the day.

The Full Course

Lunch or mittagessen starts with soup.  The national favorite is the knoblauchcreme soup.  This classic soup is offered in restaurants serving Austrian traditional food.   The soup is flavored with garlic, onions, pepper and bay leaf. Potatoes give the soup body and texture. 

The prince of soups though is the weiner  suppentof.  Beef and beef bones lends the soup the favorite beefy flavor enhanced with parsley, celery, and pepper.  The secret of cooking this superbly has been kept in the family.  The trick is actually correctly preparing the bouillon.  The bouillon is the be all and end all of the soup after the succulent beef and meaty bones. 

Tomato soup and kubriscreme soup are also Austrian favorites.  Sample all the soups and discover which you like best.  The Austrians would bet you will go for weiner suppentof.  How about it? 

One dish that takes really too long to prepare is the Beuschel.  This is commonly prepared during the winter months.  These are the stuff that goes into the dish - calf's heart and lungs.   The blood vessels are removed by hand, quite a chore really.  After these are rid of blood vessels, these are cut into tiny pieces to make it look nicer.  Before slicing, these are chilled and made to sit in vinegar.  The batch is cooked with cream.

The weiner schnitzel is Austria's number one meat dish. Veal or pork is pounded to flat strips dipped in egg, flour, and breadcrumbs and fried in hot butter.  The pounded pork or veal is tender and delicious.  This is served with potatoes and a slice of lemon.  Those who prefer no fruity taste can pass up the cranberry sauce.  

Potatoes are still tops with the young and old.  Don't miss the chance of trying the potato loaves seasoned with garlic, tarragon, pepper, and paprika powder.  Braunschweig, sausage or Krakow sausage perks up the potato loaf.  That explains why potato loaves are a big hit with Austrians.

Desserts

Austrians love pancakes and Viennese pastries are known in the world as the one of the best treats.  The Kaiserschmarrn pancake has an interesting history.  The pancake was concocted by the palace chef in a hurry to serve the hungry emperor.  Instead of the usual rounded fluffy pancake, the pancake has a torn appearance.  This an omelet concocted from milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and flour.  Raisins are optional.

It is so easy to fall in love with Austria.  A few days stay is not enough.  To get the most out of your holiday budget and to enjoy Austria, get an affordable holiday apartment Vienna.  Make a reservation for a holiday apartment online.  You pick out where you want to stay and what services or facilities are needed to make your Austrian holiday fun and leisurely.

Visit our Vienna guide and find more information about the city.

If you want to experience the best from Europe; read our Paris guide