i really like black pudding

i make myself a schnitzel

is there even such a thing as fancy traditional fast food?

we finally have a fine summer day here in austria after weeks of chilly weather, rain and even flooding. it almost felt like autumn already, so it wasn't all that strange for me to think of warming stew when i found cute little miniature cabbage in my organic delivery last week.

but how do i use those adorable tiny cabbages before summer hits us big time and all i want to eat is ice cream and stuff my bra with those fish fillets from my freezer?

i will go for classic bohemian utilization, krautfleckerl. i like them even better when they are cold, but that is just one of my gastronomical quirks. those mini cabbages will give me more than enough for lunch and dinner! krautfleckerl usually consist of classic head cabbage, onions and pasta called fleckerl. you could compare fleckerl to the italian quadrucci or farfalle.

but i need to improvise once again and use up my penne, my garlic and those three adorable bundles instead of the classic ingredients fleckerl, onion and cabbage. so technically this dish might not be krautfleckerl anymore ... let's call it an interpretation! lets call it ...

penne with braised baby cabbage

i cooked a good hand full of penne. in the same pot, i later fried 4 cloves of garlic in sunflower oil. i roughly cut those baby cabbage heads, all in all they where about 250 grams in the end. i added that to the pot.




then i added 100 ml of water, popped on a lid and let the cabbage simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes. the water had dissappeared by then and all that was left to do was adding the pasta and the seasoning. i am not supposed to eat too much salt because my bood pressure is going through the roof, so i only added fresly groud black pepper. i am sure caraway seeds would also fit perfectly (they are mandatory in regular krautfleckerl!) or you could even use vegetable stock instead of water.

maybe i should give my improvisations a little more thought, because caraway seeds would have been a great thing in there! but there you go. i spiced up something i've known and liked all my life and that is nothing special at all, just everyday food. i could cook krautfleckerl if you woke me up in the middle of the night :)

how sweet, more *nockerl ... !

i guess you are aware of my love for *nockerl*. i adore those tiny pillows in every shape and form, no matter if savory or sweet. luckily my heirloom recipes offer many variations, they all are easy, quick, filling, cheap and above all delicious. the little dumplings really are a staple of the regional cuisine and i think that their biggest pro is that you can so easily adjust servings to your desire.

if you feel really hungry just go ahead and load a whole plate full to the brim! if you come home from a loooong day and you still have left over *nockerl* from the day before, just nibble around a bit! grab your fork and plunge into the pot!

it also comes in very handy that you can so easily freeze a batch, if they are still undercooked or half done it's even better. you can get very inventive with your additional ingredients when you fancy *nockerl* the next time and take a batch out of your freezer.

but i am going for freshly boiled today.
and i am also going for sweet!


topfennockerl / tiny curd cheese dumplings, nockerl, or gnocchi

with a fork, thoroughly mix 250 g curd cheese, one egg, 25 g (2 tablespoons) of semolina, 20 g (2 tablespoons) of flour and a pinch of salt. you might need more flour, this really depends on the texture of your mixture. you might even need less than i used here, just try it out!


set the mixture aside and let it rest for about half an hour. the dough should not be too soft, so you might even add more flour at this point.

bring a pot of water to the boil. now form little *nockerl* with two spoons. once you throw them into the water, it should only simmer (this is VERY important!) the *nockerl* are done when they start to float to the surface.


melt a knob of butter in a pan. stir in 15 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and two packets of vanilla sugar. roast the crumbs until they turn brown. my mum usually makes them much sweeter and adds like 4 times as much (regular) sugar and also cinnamon. you see, it just depends on your taste!


when your *nockerl* are done, remove them from the water, place them in the pan and turn them a little to coat them with the crumbs.


it turns out that the specifications above make exactly 13 nockerl. too much for me to eat in one sitting, so this actually serves two. or me again, in the evening.


the other day my mum suggested to coat those *nockerl* with poppy seeds. that's also a fine idea but since my pantry is not as well stocked as hers i'd need to do some more grocery shopping for *nockerl* improvisation extravaganza.

am hungertuch nagen

if you literally translate that german expression it says something like *nibbling on the hunger cloth*. that saying always annoyed me, as long as i can remember. because no matter how little money my family had or how bad things where all around, there was always food on the table.

i think i might have jumped the gun with my last post and my recent comments probably led you to believe that i am actually more than broke and everything is going down the drain. no, i can't affort a new computer right now. but this one might work just fine for a couple of more months! hey, and i wouldn't be a *glass half full-person* if i let a silly computer problem get me down, right? if life hands you financial lemons ... take a stroll trough your neighbourhood and look for delicious rambling weeds you could cook for dinner!

... uhm ... say what?! is the [dinner for one] lady a bag lady now??

no, i am not completely coo-coo. well, at least not yet! but my current *misery* (is it, really?) made me think. how did my mother and my grandmother do that? how did they feed a busload of hungry yaps several times a day with delicious, filling and above all cheap meals? how did they creatively alter recipes and just make the most of the produce from their own backyard? well, i don't have the luxury of a backyard, but i do have a lovely neighborhood where interesting *things* grow wild. interesting things i used to eat when i was a child! that's not weed! that's not worthless green garbage! when i was strolling my block the last couple of days, the delicious smell of elderflower tickled my nose i immediately thought of those amazing fritters my grandmother used to make. they where merely fried blossoms dipped in pancake batter, and they where unbelievably delicious.


elderflower fritters / elderflower pancakes

first, gather a couple of elderflowers. you don't need to wash them, just make sure that you remove any insects from the blossoms or the stalks - we want the fritters to be vegetarian, right?

[ since i worship mister anthony bourdain and his approach towards food around the globe i might even fry me up some high-protein bug, what do you think? na, just kidding! ]


now mix 125 g flour (i used half whole wheat and half regular white flour), one egg, 250 ml milk and a dash of salt and leave it to rest for at least half an hour [or make *your* favourite pancake batter, i am sure it will work just as good!]. make sure the batter is really thick, because it needs to cover all the blossoms in the end. too runny is not good!



in the meantime heat a knob of butter in a small frying pan. dunk the flower heads in the batter then place them flowerside down in the pan.



if your batter is too runny you can spoon some more over the flowers in the pan. you only need to fry one side, just wait until the batter sets. if you want the fritters more pancake-style you can cut off the main stalks and flip them over. if you deep fry them in hot oil, they probably look a little more appealing, but i totally like them pancake style! i even had so much batter left at the end that i made a regular pancake that covered the last floret entirely ... yummie too! [see the rest of the pictures here]


dust the florets with icing sugar and eat while still warm! vanilla ice cream on the side is also a very very good idea :)


while i never was a fan of those elderflower drinks that became so popular over the last couple of years as a fizzy refreshment throughout the summer i just love love love compote of ripe elderberries. it was my grandmother's trademark dessert and my mum makes it equally well. i guess this autumn it is finally time for me to tackle this heirloom recipe! i'll still have some time until then, so i better not munch away those bushes lining the streets in my neighborhood!

tiny little pillows

when i got back on the blogging wagon late last year i was combing through my favorite blogs instead of posting a dish myself. you gotta begin in a small way, right? there was one recipe in particular that would not let me go ... i bookmarked it back then and always always always wanted to try the gnocchi over at tuna toast myself.

well, folks - today is the day!

when i was going over the recipe it occured to me that the bohemian cuisine has something very similar (again!) and that i already had my mum cook those "potato noodles" for me to showcase here - which of course, as i was busy busy busy back then i totally forgot to do!



so let's proceed with the gnocchi instead, right? and though the italian approach over at mizz tokyoastrogirl's looks rather tempting, i decided to keep it short and simple in the end (man, was i hungy!!). i fried the little pillows up with garlic, onions and basil. besides, how should i ever make up my mind and choose only one way to prepare the gnocchi since there are like a gazillion variations of these nockerl in bavarian, austrian, hungarian, slovenian and italian cuisine?!

wash, boil and peel 800 g potatoes. mash them with a food mill if you have one, or just use a potato masher like i did. make a mould in the middle and add a knob of butter, 100 g flour (i try to use spelt flour now and i avoid white flour alltogether) and one egg.


work the dough with your hands and knead it well. add more flour if necessary but be carefull - the dough should be fluffy!


cut the dough in several large pieces and roll the first piece into a long stick about as thick as your finger. cut the stick into little pieces.


usually you should give the gnocchi an oval shape, but this is a step i left out. rolling the pieces with a fork and your finger is another interesting way to shape them a little concave, then again i figured i'd go for little pillows instead. it's much too much work to individually shape them! I WAS GETTING REALLY HUNGRY BY THEN! i might want to try the "pretty version" of the gnocchi next time. i was getting crankier by the minute (did i mention just how hungry i was?), so i figured i'd go for "tasty" this time!


bring a pot of water to the boil and add a pinch of salt. when the water is at a boil, put in the little gnocchi. after a couple of minutes the gnocci will rise from the bottom of the pot to the surface - they are ready now! take them out with a large strainer, be careful not to squish them!


in a skillet heat a little olive oil and throw in one sliced onion, basil and garlic if you like. gently fry for a little while. transfer the gnocchi to the skillet and gently toss them until covered. continue stirring the gnocchi.


serve them hot, you can even add some grated cheese if you like!

i figured that i could easily prepare those little babies when i am in a hurry, so i made the whole recipe and froze three batches. phew!! much less preparation time on the next gnocchi-lunch!


ps: did you notice, i got a brandnew camera! i bought myself a belated christmas present, a sony α, one pretty fine dSLR-cam! i still have to get used to it, sooo many buttons to push, sooooo many adjustments to make! i might stick to my little digicam for my food-pix though. i hate to see this precious baby covered in flour!

hm, did i ever post a picture of myself in this blog before?

a sparse meal on a holy day

it might be a catholic guilt thing or i might not be as agnostic as i like to believe, but on high catholic holidays like today i celebrate a day of abstinence. i even avoid to eat meat, mainly because this dogma has been rammed down my throat all my life. i have to admit that i bought and ate a turkey bacon sandwich today before i remembered it was good friday. and i felt a tiny bit guilty because of that too. again, this must be my catholic upbringing :D

i was not allowed to eat meat on good friday growing up and i was always pretty upset about this. as i might have mentioned before i only know the bare necessities of my faith. apart from an extensive interest around the time of my confirmation i just never was a very religious person, i was not raised that way. but i highly admire people with a strong faith, whatever faith that is. and i am really interested in various different religions.

so while we where not raised particularly religious i found it always pretty strange that my mother was so strict about those specific days of abstinence.

over the years i found my own meaning in those days: serenity. i try to reflect and recollect. and i try to reinforce my state of mind with traditional food i know from my childhood, a very sparse meal of topfensterz for example.

it is hard to really describe topfensterz. a sterz is similar to polenta, it is a very simple dish, very rural and very austrian. it has probably been eaten by farmers and servants out on their fields for a few centuries. many variations exist, it is mainly made of buckwheat in styria, made of cornmeal in carinthia and known by the name of frika in slovenia. it can also be made of potatoes.


our family sterz is made of curd cheese though. i have never seen anyone prepare this sterz just like we do, but apparently it is heavily influenced by bohemian cuisine. it seems that up to this day my family is deep-rooted in rural history, and i really like that idea.

topfensterz

500 g curd cheese
500 g flour
1 egg
salt
3 tbsp of butter - usually 5 tbsp of lard are used here, but i don't have that in my kitchen and 5 tablespoons would be way to much for my taste ...

1. melt the butter in a casserole - put it in the oven while you preheat it to 200°c
2. crumb together the curd cheese, the flour and the egg
   
   
   
3. add a pinch of salt
4. make sure that the mixture stays crumbly
5. pour it in the casserole and give it a quick stir
6. put the mixture in the oven and bake until the top starts to get brown
7. turn off the oven. tear up the crust and stir the sterz
8. leave in the oven for another few minutes
9. serve with a glass of milk - the sterz tastes best (in my opinion) if you dip a spoon full of sterz in the milk and then eat it .... mhhhh!

my sterz looks a bit different from the sterz my mother makes.
but still, it tastes the same

sauer macht lustig

the old german saying sauer macht lustig literally translates into sour makes happy. that does not make much sense in english, right? it does not really make sense in german either, and i never understood why. in german we rarely distinguish between sour and acidic, so this even contributes to my confusion ...

apparently this weird saying where nobody really knows what it means derives from "sauer macht appetit" ... and if i may translate this loosely as "if you eat acidic food you will beg for more!"

yes, i totally second that!

there'd be enough for two if you follow my recipe below ... but i ate it all up myself. bring me the pot, i even want to lick every little rest out of there! and i am not even particularly hungry today.

so sour / acidic does indeed make you happy!
that dish certainly made my day :D

recipe # 5: sauerkraut roux soup (adapted from this recipe)

200 g sauerkraut
0,5 liter vegetable stock
150 g potatoes (4 really small ones)
1 bayleaf
1 juniper berry
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 small onion
1 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp of flour

1. put the vegetable stock, the peeled and diced potatoes, the bayleaf and the juniper berry in a pot and cook until the potatoes are tender
2. in the meantime heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a pan and fry the diced onion (if you want to add meat or saussage, you can do that here ...)
3. cut the sauerkraut a little if necessary and add it to the potatoes in the vegetable stock as soon as the potatoes are tender
4. add the fried onions as well and take out the bayleaf and the juniper berry - if you manage to find it :D
   
5. make a roux in the pan where you just fried your onion by melting one tablespoon of butter and sprinkle in one tablespoon of flour. you will get out all those delicious flavours if you use the pan from before
   
6. add the roux to the sauerkraut soup and bring to a boil
   
   
   
7. if you like your soup really sauerkrauty, save some of the juices from the krautpackage and season the finished soup with it - i like mine only mildly acidic, so i don't do that
   

memory lane

my grandfather cooked for me this week!

ever since my grandma passed away two years ago he really had to change his life. he always assumed he was the first to go, and he always said that it would be a disaster for the whole family if my grandmother would pass away first. and somehow we found ourselves in this situation - and my grandfather was probably right. my grandmother was the perfect homemaker. the whole family had to adapt to this unfamiliar situation, and we often failed in "recreating" her spirit. she is still missed every single day, and everything in my grandparent's house still reminds us of her.

in a very traditional way she always considered everything inside the house her stomping ground - especially the kitchen.

and while it has always been bit little of a passion of my grandfather to cook, my grandma was a very sassy and feisty woman. she rarely let him make a lunch for the family, and only if the grandchildren or their children insisted hard enough she would finally give in and let him make one of his famous (and very traditional) dishes. really, who could refuse a request for opas brotsuppe if a grandchild would stare at you with big sheep's eyes? as a matter of fact, my grandma would also keep my uncle the chef off her patch! as i said, she was a very feisty woman :D

however, my grandfather was not used to doing stuff around the house at all when my grandmother died, and he still needs a lot of help from his seven children and their spouses. they take turns in doing the laundry, cleaning and clearing up. some of the grandchildren take care of him too, playing cards as a diversion and keeping him company in the evenings. my brother is my hero for doing that almost every night! most of the grandchildren live in the area (i guess i am the only one living more than 50 kilometers away) and they often drop by with the great-grandchildren to cheer him up.

while he needs a hand on all the household stuff, as far as the kitchen is concerned - this has really become his territory now! i am somewhat relieved to see that and he still lightens up when somebody requests a special repast. and i am impressed that he does not only make the staple pot roast, bread soup or smoked meat, he also succeeds in making slow roasted and marinated game (i can not believe that is the english word for "wild")

so when we told him i was coming home and i'd really like to have lunch at his place i believe he was looking forward to that as much as i was. cheerful moments around the family table are rare these days, i guess both our lifes have become very similar as far as eating alone in front of the tv is concerned ...

he cooked geselchtes mit kraut und knödel for us - smoked meat (cooked) with dumplings and kraut. very traditional, very rural.

most of the meat is pure fat, and i have to admit that i am not really turned on by that. my plate usually does not see a pure junk of fat meat. i prefer the lean bits, and it was the same here: i only ate the lean meat with lots and lots of kraut and dumplings. as always, my grandpa would state that i was a picky eater and sneak the bits i didn't want off my plate.

always a must when i am home, even if it is just for a few hours: having coffee with grandpa while the big old dog is stretching under the table. and wow, the milk tastes so differently! i really love fresh milk (virtually straight from the cow!) although i am not a big fan of milk in general (lactose intolerance?) so if i bought a liter of cow milk from the farmer down the road it might only go bad in my fridge - i only need milk for my coffee.

i tell you, this is the look, feel and taste of my childhood! food-wise i've come a long way, but sometimes it is a blessing to just go back and eat the traditional peasant food of my home.

székelygulyás

i just love all the influences of various ethnicities in austrian cuisine! my country used to be a multiethnic monarchy under habsburg rule until 1918, i believe you all know that from history class (or, maybe not). it expanded eastwards starting out from the teeny tiny austria i live in today and included parts of the czech republic, slovakia, poland, hungary, italy, slovenia, croatia, serbia, romania and the ukraine.

up to the present day we have so many diverse dishes, so many flavours and textures and so many regional specialities still influenced by eastern europe and the former duchies, counties and kingdoms of the austrian empire. history around the globe teaches us that it's not exactly easy to manage a large empire with diverse ethnicities and austria inarguably has had a large share of a very dark moment in history.

still, i grew up to not only tolerate but embrace diversity in beliefs, religions, traditions and above all food! i value that highly.

when i was little it never really occured to me that i was so incredibly influenced by eastern european cuisine. i always believed that the dishes i grew up with where typically austrian and only found out about their history when i grew up to be a food loving teenager. bohemian pastry, mediterranean and balkan meat dishes, and not to forget the comforting eastern european stews are all a staple in my diet.

i just adore topfengolatschen (bohemian) with a nice cup of coffee in the afternoon.

minced meat ćevapčići (balkan) where my favorite fast food snack as a child and still are our traditional family christmas dish today. forget the turkey, my family has eaten ćevapčići for at least 20 years on christmas eve. i often get a "what?!? where is the roast pork?!?" when i describe our luscious feast with ćevapčići and a wide range of side dishes, sauces and various breads.

when i think of comfort food from my childhood - cheap, easy, quick, filling and delicious - i always think of the hungarian goulash. it still is the most comforting food i could ever eat.


this will also be my contribution to the brandnew foodblog event waiter, there's something in my ... stew, because goulash really has always been comfort food for me. my mama makes like a gazillion versions of this hungarian speciality and szegedin goulash (or as we call it: szegediner gulasch) has always been my favorite. when we have regular goulash i usually push the meat aside and drown white bread in the sauce, but when szegedin goulash is on the menu is finish off the whole plate, i request seconds (and often more) and i always feel the urge to lick the plate when i'm done eating ... oh yes, and then my pants pop :) ... when i've eaten too much i can always sip a little slivovitz (eastern european) ... indeed, sweet relief!

400 g diced goulash meat (pork)
500 g sauerkraut
vegetable oil
1 onion
3 tsp paprika powder (you can take as much as you like, even up to 2 tsp)
1 clove of garlic
about 150 ml water
salt
bay leaf
2 tbsp flour
150 ml milk

1. in a pot, gently fry diced onion and diced garlic in a little vegetable oil
   
2. add pork and continue to cook until the meat is turning brown
3. add the sauerkraut. some people like to drain or even rinse it, but i prefer putting it into the pot with all the juicy liquid. i also like to rinse the package with a little water (about 150 ml), so there's enough liquid in the goulash later
   
4. bring to a boil
5. now add the paprika and the bay leaf
6. reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes
7. mix flour and milk and add to the goulash to thicken it
8. bring to a boil again
   
9. serve with plain bread or cooked potatoes
   

i have never made this goulash myself, so danke für das rezept, mama :)

my siblings and i gave my parents "the internet" and a laptop for christmas and my mother is slowly losing her fear of technology. she can even skype me now, she can check and send emails and she is also beginning to discover those mysterious things called "weblogs" ...

technorati tags: wtsim, waiter theres something

so i kick back with my goulash and listen to the strong wind outside ... a storm warning has been issued yesterday for central europe, and i am kind of worried about that. though i have always been fascinated by thunder and lightning i have never witnessed something like that before. it's really a very unusual weather situation and the storm is expected to hit the northern part of the alps (where i live) in two to three hours with 150 km/h. i honestly don't know if i should be afraid or excited.


i am just watching the news where they have live coverage of various locations in austria preparing for the storm - everyone is on red alert. that really is a weird situation right now ... i better prepare a few candles and matches, i don't want to be surprised by a power blackout ...

update

it is 23:30 now and various things, odds and ends are tumbling around on my neighbours terrace ... why didn't he put that stuff in the shed? he'll probably find his patio furniture and his plants in the danube tomorrow, a few kilometers downstream ...

now the light starts quivering, that definitely feels weird. thank good i am in a solidly built house and i don't have to be afraid that the roof gets blown off ... but the loud wind and the noise from all the stuff that gets blown away outside is definitely giving me the creeps!

another update

so how did you other europeans survive this stormy night? the hurricane was gone when i woke up and though there still are rather strong winds, neither myself nor anybody i know was harmed during the night. my sister could not get to work in time this morning and there still is a blackout in the remote village where my grandfather lives, but my mama is taking care of him and bringing coffee and warm food until the broken wires are repaired.

apparently upper austria was hit very hard (137 km/h in linz-hörsching) and with lower austria and salzburg the most damage was done along the northern side of the alps. we had a peak of 216 km/h in the alpine upland in salzburg. that sounds really scary!

i will skip university today and i'll take a walk around my neighbourhood later to see if anything is heavily damaged. but it looks totally quiet outside right now, there might be some damage on the current building site near the danube (they are errecting a protective wall to prevent flooding of my neighbourhood). there are no warnings about flooding in linz right now, but its raining heavily and we might have to expect something over the next few days ...

a rehearsal lunch

i am afraid of yeast.

honestly.

yeas is an ingredient i have never used before because i really think yeast is always getting out of control no matter if i precisely stick to a recipe. i've watched the women in my family cook with yeast like a million times, and i was always terrified by the duplication of the dough's volume.

i might not fully understand the concept of yeast. this is a "living" ingredient and i guess that's what makes it so uncontrollable for me. you never know what those little fungi are about to do. is it to cold for them to rise? am i killing them by pouring too hot fluids over?!

well. today i was taking on the challenge and overcoming my fear of the fungus.

as my sister and my brother are coming over on saturday and i have never ever made anything with yeast before i needed to make sure that the lunch my sister "ordered" was turning out fine. i mentiones before that we give eachother little presents for no reason and my sister gave me a lovely (and again colorful! yeah!) oven/serving dish that perfectly fits for a single household like mine. and the dish is perfect for buchteln, as she told me.

so i will rehearse a recipe for sweet yeast dumplings and berries for lunch today because i want to try out whether the fungus will obey me.

buchteln
200 ml milk
60 g butter
375 g flour
1 pkt of yeast
50 g sugar

01 sieve flour into a bowl
02 add sugar to the bowl
03 warm up milk and let butter melt in the warm milk (leave a little of that mixture to pour on the dumplings later)
04 dissolve yeast the fluid and pour over the flour/sugar mixture
05 add one egg and combine to a smooth dough
06 cover bowl and let dough rise for about 40 minutes at a warm place
07 the dough should be easily removed from the bowl
08 knead dough and make little dumplings
09 place them in a greased oven dish. arrange the dumplings closely, touching each other.
10 cover and let rise again for about 20 minutes
11 pour over the rest of the milk/butter mixture
12 bake for 30 minutes at about 200°C

berries:
300 g frozen berries
50 g sugar
1 tbsp starch
50 ml water

01 heat berries in a small pan
02 combine water and starch, add to the berries and bring to the boil
03 pour the berries over the dumplings while still hot

though the dumplings where not as fluffy as i would have liked them to be, they tasted quite okay for my first ever yeast-experience.

technorati tags: yeast

a little update:

my second experience with yeast was finally a winner! while i was on skype with my sister and my mom (her first time skyping *alone*) they both suggested to be more patient and let the dough rise a couple more times. i guess that was the whole trick!! i can't wait to have those little babies for breakfast tomorrow!

traditions, memories, changing habits and a recipe

angelika from the flying apple had a nice quote on her page yesterday: "the united states and great britain are two countries seperated by the same language".

one thing i was always strangely proud of was my dialect (you can probably compare it to the thick southern accent of some americans which not everyone who knows english is able to understand). i grew up in rural austria, in the north of the country in a region known as the "böhmerwald" (bohemian forest). i think i mentioned my strong bohemian influence in the kitchen before. there's a sarcastic comment used a lot in our region: "standard german is the first foreign language you need to learn". i always found this was actually true. nothing is as hard as being eight years old and having to answer questions by word of mouth in proper german. our teachers really had to drill us back then in the 80s ... today this is practically irrelevant because kids grow up with both standard german and dialect and most of them are not shy at all to switch to standard german. i was always pretty embarassed if i had to lose my dialect because i simply was unexercised - there was never really a need to speak standard german until senior grades. i had to communicating a paper to the class every once in a while but i never really had to do the talking part in standard german.

i was entering a whole new world when i finally moved to the bigger cities of upper austria after school. and three years ago i moved to the provincial capital of upper austria, linz. ever since i have settled here things have changed a lot and i was rather oblivious to that. i still talk mostly dialect, but now that i am taking my vocational baccalaureat diploma in arts my friends come from all parts of austria and germany as well. and i have to adjust my talking a little. sometimes a lot, and sometimes i have to really speak propper german in cheerful talks or private conversations if i want fellow students from the ukraine, serbia, or even vorarlberg to understand me. vorarlberg is a federal state of austria whose dialect is pretty much schwyzerdütsch (swiss german). i often whip out my best german and this fellow student from vorarlberg only notices his relapse into his dialect by the questionmarks floating over my head.

i hadn't really noticed that the same thing happens from time to time when i am with my folks back home. my articulation really has changed and my folks unconsciously call intention to the fact that i modified my vernacular. they raise their eyebrows when i use "sprechen" instead of "redn". and only that reaction makes me notice that i have shunt another dialect word from my vocabulary. of course, give me one afternoon and i fall back into my dialect as though nothing had happened.

one thing i painfully realized lately is that i substitute the beloved word "erdapfel" (earth apple) with the standard german "kartoffel" a lot. erdäpfel are a staple food cultivated by virtually every household in the smaller villages of the bohemian forest. my grandfather still stores his potatoes in an "erdkeller", a cellar near the house excavated around 1900. it is located on a hillside and has a stone-vault and a time-worn wooden door. this cellar always was a magical place for me, my siblings and cousins. we would always sit on top of the hill with the cellar underneath us pretending that gnomes and dwarfs where living behind the wooden door of the cellar ...

(thank you for taking the pictures, karin)

my grandfather wants to give up this earth cellar as it is getting too difficult for him to store his potatoes and wine far away from the house. i think this is pretty sad as there are so many childhood memories connected with this magical spot. i hope he just leaves the cellar empty instead of really flatten the area in one go and also destroy the nearby meadow arranged as a garden by my late grandmother.

every member of the family currently is using up the big pile of potatoes in the earth cellar from the last harvest. and now we actually get to the point of my rampant post. i have an easy savoury potato spread for you that has a long tradition, especially in rural areas of austria. we mostly eat it as a snack with bread, a "jause", which is a light meal taken in the afternoon. today the spread is very popular for barbecues or parties: it's the famous "erdäpfelkås"

(about 20 servings)
1 kg potatoes
250 g sour cream (i use cremefin instead)
250 g onions
salt, pepper, parsley, chives

01 cook potatoes and let cool down
02 peel cold potatoes and mash roughly (using a fork)
03 chop onions very finely and combine with potatoes in a bowl
04 add sour cream / cremefin, add herbs and season to taste

technorati tags:recipe, potato, potatoes, onion, onions