1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (82 page)

Where:
In Salzburg
, Goldener Hirsch Restaurant, tel 43/662-80-84-861,
goldenerhirsch.com
;
in Vienna
, Hotel Sacher, tel 43/1-514-560,
sacher.com
; Meierei im Stadtpark, 43/1-713-3168-10,
steirereck.at
;
in New York
, Wallsé, tel 212-352-2300,
kg-ny.com/wallse
;
in Queens
, Zumstammtisch, tel 718-386-3014,
zumstammtisch.com
;
in San Francisco
, Suppenküche, tel 415-252-9289,
suppenkuche.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Neue Cuisine: The Elegant Tastes of Vienna
by Kurt Gutenbrunner (2011);
wolfgangpuck.com
(click Recipes, then search kaiserschmarren);
allrecipes.com
(search kaiserschmarrn).

The oil has anti-inflammatory properties.

With a glow that suggests liquid amethysts and a flavor at once nutty and pungent, pumpkin seed oil—a specialty of Austria’s region of Styria—is gaining wide popularity for the best of reasons. Taken to the old world from the new by Christopher Columbus, the pumpkin, with its orange flesh, provides welcome inspiration for pies, chips, breads, soups, and puddings of all kinds, but may find its most sophisticated culinary expression via its seeds. When pressed, the seeds of the so-called oil pumpkin variety (
Cucurbita pepo
) exude a thick, viscous, dark bronze-purple oil. The oil lends a warm nuttiness to many dishes, simultaneously tinting them with an inky sheen that may discourage the uninitiated.

Resembling honeydews, these greenish pumpkins are a particular specialty of the Styrian town of Graz (also celebrated as the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger). There, nearly every home keeps a pumpkin patch, and nearly every table is graced with a bottle of the oil locally known as
kürbiskernöl.
The condiment is made quite simply, by roasting the seeds and then cold-pressing them to extract the oil.

Prized for its uniquely strong, robust, warm, and almost strawlike flavor, pumpkin seed oil has such a low burning point that it is rarely cooked. Instead, it is drizzled over all sorts of dishes, especially salads of greens or roasted potatoes, ladled into soups, and used as a dip for crusty breads. It lends an especially luxurious note to the traditional Styrian appetizer salad of raw beef and slivered onion as served at Steirereck and Beim Novak restaurants in Vienna.

As Mr. Schwarzenegger is no doubt already aware, pumpkin seed oil is also good for you—high in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and the phytosterols thought to help reduce cholesterol levels.

Where:
In Vienna
, beef salad at Restaurant Steirereck, tel 43/1-713-31-68,
steirereck.at
; Beim Novak, tel 43/1-523-3244,
beimnovak.at
;
across the U.S.
, Whole Foods Markets,
wholefoodsmarket.com
.
Mail order:
amazon.com (search styrian pumpkinseed oil; chefs warehouse pumpkin seed oil).
Further information:
styriangold.com
.
Tip:
Because of its very intense flavor, a little pumpkin seed oil goes a long way. Some chefs add a small amount as a flavor boost to another kind of oil, such as peanut or corn, that is better for frying. Pumpkin seed oil can be stored in the refrigerator for about nine months.

Nur Knödel
(
Only Dumplings
) is the title of a charming Austrian cookbook written in both English and German. As promised, it deals exclusively with a vast array of dumplings—a subject of wide culinary interest in its home country as well as in Germany and Bohemia. The true dumplings common to these parts are filled with meat, cheese, or—for dessert —cooked prunes or apricots and are raised by being boiled or steamed, as opposed to filled dough-wrapped types like the Italian ravioli or even the German
maultaschen
(mouth pockets) that are boiled but do not rise. And if the category of true dumplings includes Jewish
knaidlach
(matzo balls) and Italian gnocchi, it’s no accident, as both of these derive from the German word
knödel.

The king of all dumplings may be the
leberknödel
, filled with pork or beef liver and often gracing clear and heady meat broths; the golf ball–size wonder is mildly seasoned with onion, marjoram, and grated lemon zest.
Fleischknödel
is a similar, if less refined and silky, choice made with beef, veal, and/or pork.

Markklösschen
are little juicy dumplings based on succulent veal bone marrow.
Mehlklösse
are flour dumplings raised with baking powder and served atop stews and braised meats as sops for the gravy.
Griessklösschen
are the gently nutmeg-scented semolina dumplings that garnish broths or meats.

Bayrische Semmelknödel
are Bavarian bread or, more literally, roll dumplings. They are big and spongy, enriched with bacon, onion, and parsley to go with meats and gravy.

Kartoffelklösse
are potato dumplings. Made with raw or cooked potatoes, and savory with rendered goose or duck fat, they are topped with melted butter and toasted bread crumbs and served as a side dish.

Serviettenkloss
, literally a napkin dumpling, is made with bread dough that is wrapped in a big cloth (napkin) and then hung over boiling water to steam into one huge globe. Once cooked, it is spoon-broken into portions that thirstily absorb rich gravies.

Last but not least are the sweet varieties that make it possible to subscribe to a
dumpling-only philosophy and still enjoy dessert. Enter
zwetschgenknödel
or
marillenknödel
, made of potatoes or bread and filled with blue plums (the former) or apricots (the latter). They are served either sprinkled with cinnamon sugar or strewn with poppy seeds in melted butter. There is also
Topfenknödel
, a puffy quark or cottage cheese dumpling topped with melted butter and cinnamon sugar, or for variety, a little warm chocolate sauce. Dumplings forever!

Further information and recipes:
Nur Knödel: The Ultimate Dumpling Book from Austria, Bavaria & Bohemia
by Franziska Helmreich and Anton Staudinger (1995);
The German Cookbook
by Mimi Sheraton (2014);
Neue Cuisine: The Elegant Tastes of Vienna
by Kurt Gutenbrunner (2011);
The Cuisines of Germany
by Horst Scharfenberg (1989);
germanfoodguide.com
(search dumplings);
food.com
(search topfenknodel).

In technical baking terms, a true torte includes no flour (ground nuts, blanched or not, usually substitute), shortening (egg yolks being the sole source of fat), or chemical leavening (beaten egg whites do the light lifting). But in the panoply of German-Austrian-Hungarian pastries,
torte
is the word used for many of the cakes you’ll find beckoning from the shelves of pastry shops, particularly if the cakes are round.

Though the Sachertorte—with light, deeply chocolate layers, apricot jam lining, and dark chocolate icing—and the Dobosctorte, sponge cake layered with buttercream and topped with caramel, are the most famous of the lot, the Pischinger torte may be the very best: a delicious adventure with a glossy chocolate icing covering eight, ten, or twelve paper-thin crunchy layers of the brown
gaufrette
wafers known as
Karlsbader oblaten.
These “leaves” are sandwiched together with thin layers of smooth chocolate buttercream, perhaps seasoned with finely ground hazelnuts and rum. (Milk chocolate is most traditional, but dark bittersweet chocolate lends a richer and more sophisticated effect.)

The oblaten on which the torte is based are the specialty of the spa town formerly called Karlsbad and now returned to the Czech Republic as Karlovy Vary. On weekends and holidays, the town’s parks host hordes of pedestrians holding the spouts of elongated teapots up to their lips as they drink in the famed sulfurous spring waters that make the place smell like the world capital of rotten eggs. Odd that it should also be famous for the sweet, toasty oblaten sold in big, stiff, round packages, or in prepared wedges for home pastry cooks. Those who wish to prepare their own Pischinger tortes buy the fragile wafers plain, taking care not to crack them in handling.

Where:
In Vienna
, Demel, tel 43/1-535-17-17-0,
demel.at
;
in Munich and Dresden
, Kreutzkamm, tel 49/89-993-5570,
kreutzkamm.de
.
Mail order:
For oblaten wafers,
austrianshop.com
(search oblaten).
Further information and recipes:
The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire
by Joseph Wechsberg (1968);
Gourmet’s Old Vienna Cookbook
by Lillian Langseth-Christensen (1959);
recipelink.com
(search pischinger torte);
hungrybrowser.com
(search pischinger torte);
pischinger.at
.

Sugar-dusted nockerln resemble snow-capped peaks.

In a dish that’s as baroque as the romantic Austrian city for which it is named, snowy islands of meringues are reimagined as the hot, sweet, and airy dumplings called
nockerln.
Soufflés really, they are baked in milk and finished with a vanilla sauce or vanilla sugar.

The birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburg is a romantically pastel city with antique proportions, stunningly florid churches, and a nonstop program of operas, symphonies, festivals, and chamber music. It seems exactly the right setting for this luscious dessert. No place in that city is more adept at its execution than the justly famous old Hotel Goldener Hirsch, which has been in operation since 1407. Along with
kaiserschmarren
(see
listing
),
apfel pfannkuchen
(see
listing
), and soufflés, this lavishly sweet ending is classified in Austria and Germany as
mehlspeisen
—literally, flour food, but designating the category of desserts that are not cakes. For most of us, it need be classified only as heavenly.

Where:
In Salzburg
, Goldener Hirsch Restaurant, tel 43/662-80-84-861,
goldenerhirsch.com
;
in New York
, Wallsé, tel 212-352-2300,
kg-ny.com/wallse
;
in Kansas City, MO
, Grünauer, tel 816-283-3234,
grunauerkc.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Gourmet’s Old Vienna Cookbook
by Lillian Langseth-Christensen (1959);
Neue Cuisine: The Elegant Tastes of Vienna
by Kurt Gutenbrunner (2011);
foodnetwork.com
(search salzburger nockerln);
epicurious.com
(search salzburger nockerl).