Have you ever been to Austria? No? Well, that does not necessarily mean that you have not tasted traditional Austrian food yet, for it is very well known around the world. Just as Austria’s history, the Austrian cuisine as we know it today has quite a long story to tell itself: An important feature of this delicious cuisine is that it derives from a process of intermingling of people and cultures, which at one point in time belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Habsburg Empire reached from the borders of Imperial Russia to the Adriatic and consisted of more than a dozen nationalities with over 51 million people speaking sixteen different languages. Within the last seven centuries, the cosmopolitan Habsburg rule extended to Switzerland, Alsace, Burgundy, Spain, Holland, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. With all this information and the fact that this Empire existed more than 600 years you can imagine just how many influences contributed to the evolution of Austria’s cuisine.
The Turks for example are the instigators of Vienna’s café by introducing the roasted beans around the city. Also, those of you have already tasted the famous sweet Apfelstrudel might be surprised to learn that this is the Austrian version of something the Turks were concocting when they were not busy laying siege to Vienna. Further, the Wiener Schnitzel in all likelihood came from northern Italy, while the delicious Palatschinken origin from the Hungarian plains.
The unique quality of Austrian cooking is therefore to be seen in the blending of different influences from practically all corners of Europe. Nowhere else in the world can one find, within so small an area, such a variety of eating and cooking habits.
Cooking in today’s Austria is somewhat different from the old traditions. Practically nobody in modern Austria today tries to copy the feasts of Empress Maria Theresia’s chefs or even the elaborate six-course meals of Vienna’s Biedermeier patricians of the 1840’s – for many, and quite obvious reasons. But the continuity is still there. As are the traditional influences: the roasts and sausages from southern Germany; the Gulasch from Hungary – a transfiguration of the guylas; the pastries from Bohemia.
Although, Vienna as the melting pot seems to be the only place to try the traditional Austrian cuisine, there are certainly quite a number of dishes typical for the other Austria’s mountain provinces that contribute to the repertoire of modern Austrian cooking. Just to name a few, Frittatensuppe (pan cake soup) comes from Styria; Speckknödel (bacon dumplings) from Tyrol; and Salzburg, Mozart’s home, contributed Salzburger Nockerln, the sweet soufflé made of egg whites.
Certainly, only talking about food is only half the fun. Following you will find recipes of typical Austrian dishes - main courses and desserts – as well as a collection of Austrian Christmas bakery recipes. Have fun preparing and diving into the divine multifarious tastes of Austria’s best.
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Austrian Cuisine 
