Here's a fun one. Fried chicken and Gruner Vetliner

A great combination, sounds to me. Not that far actually from the custom in Austria, mentioned occasionally here -- they serve a crispy fried breaded pounded veal "Vienna" cutlet -- idiomatically, _Wiener Sschnitzel_ -- with cool G. V. in Vienna, frequently. The tart wine plays off the rich crispy meat dish. "Southern Fried Chicken" with G. V. is like a New World salute to that tradition. (The Austrians are practical, they dropped the Habsburgs but kept the excellent food and wine.)

I bet G. V. would go superbly also with that brochette served (casually, as a snack or appetizer) at Galatoire's in New Orleans: a small skewer of fresh oysters wrapped in -- I'm not kidding -- strip bacon, THEN breaded and deep-fried, very crunchy; it could have been impossibly rich but is not, it's done with taste; G. V should go well with that too.

Just a thought . -- Max

But in fond remembrance of Franz Josef still retain Tafelspitz, at least in Vienna. ;-)

Mark Lipton

"Mark Lipton" in news: snipped-for-privacy@eudrup.ude...

"I'm disconsolate, Herr Hofrat," [Heinrich, the ancient headwaiter at Meissl & Schadn on Hoher Markt] whispered. "A regrettable accident in the kitchen. The Hofrat's _Tafelspitz_ has been cooked too long. It has --" Heinrich didn't have the strength to finish the sentence, but the tips of his fingers twitched, indicating that the meat had dissolved in the soup like snowflakes in the March sunshine. . . . "I have taken the liberty to order for the Herr Hofrat the rear part of the _Hieferschwanzl,_ close to, and very much like, the _Tafelspitz._" . . . / The Hofrat sat up stiffly. He cast one short, shocked glance at the meat. When he spoke, at last, his voice had the ring of arrogance -- arrogance instilled in him by generations of boiled-beef-eating ancestors who had been around in Vienna in 1683 while the city fought off the assault of the Turks and saved -- for a while, at least -- Western civilization. / "My dear Heinrich," the Hofrat said, with a magnificent sweep of his hand, and accentuating every single syllable, "you might just as well have offered me a veal cutlet." A slight shiver seemed to run down his spine. He got up. "My hat and cane, please."

-- "Tafelspitz for the Hofrat," in Joseph Wechsberg, _Blue Trout and Black Truffles : The Peregrinations of an Epicure,_ Knopf, 1954. Academy Chicago reprint, 1985 (ISBN 0897331346). Further reprinted by Academy Chicago, October 2000 (by request, I'll leave you to guess whose). More (or less) info at amazon.com . In 1993 and 1995 in Vienna I had difficulty finding food people who knew of Wechsberg but by 1996, Plachutta the Younger opined to me that this story was published originally there; anyway he was distributing copies with his restaurant's updated service of Tafelspitz. Not quite 24 varieties, but those I tasted deserved credit. (As for the Herr Hofrat's view, who can say?.)

Max Hauser

(Q: Where is Georg Sinzinger when we need him?)

Salut/Hi Max Hauser,

le/on Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:58:38 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

As a half hungarian, I MUST protest. While Vienna entirely unprepared for defence against seige cowered in terror, a handful of hungarians, holed up like rats in a castle, fought the entire Turkish Army to a standstill until the winter. The Turks, unprepared for the bad weather went home again, and by the next year, Vienna had become fortified.

Hello Ian, Well, I always heard the story told this way: the Turks were attacking. The Viennese were keeping them outside of the walls of the city. But then the Turks did something truly dasterdly: they began lighting the vineyards on fire. The heathens! The horror! The Viennese promptly surrendered in order to spare the vines. Perhaps that was a different Turkish siege on Vienna, but it does bring us back to the focus of our newsgroup. And it's a great story.

-e. winemonger

And those Austrians do have a sort of version of fried chicken called Backhendel. I've been told that it's from the Styrian region, but is available all over. I have also been told that if you asked a Styrian which wine one should pair with it, he'd tell you to go home. (but to be the devil's advocate, I know a number of Styrians who would be happy to recommend a pairing) I enjoyed it with beer. e. winemonger

Here's another. Empires have come and gone in the indefinitely long history of that city-state, but sometimes they leave good ideas behind. (The Ottoman Turks left coffee, for one; thence it spread to the rest of Europe, by popular tradition. Even if the first coffee houses in Paris in the late

1600s were indeed "frequented only by confirmed smokers, travelers from the Lebanon, and several Knights of Malta," as a French author complained, adding the decisive French summary "mediocre.")

The Romans, back to the story, were one empire of many, Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius, I believe, decreeing that residents of the district could sell their own wine without tax "in perpetuity," this statute being honored ever since, one reason why the metropolitan area is surrounded by myriad small or household wine bars, often with food (_Heurigen,_ etc.). Also why Marcus Aurelius (Germ. "Marc Aurel") has been long regarded there as A-O-K, as they say in the USA.

Max Hauser

Totally impossible. Every child in Vienna learns that the turks besieged Vienna twice, and both times in vein: 1529 and 1683.

M.

] Salut/Hi Max Hauser, ] ] le/on Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:58:38 -0700, tu disais/you said:- ] ] >> But in fond remembrance of Franz Josef still retain Tafelspitz, ] >> at least in Vienna. ;-) ] ] >the ring of arrogance -- arrogance instilled in him by generations of ] >boiled-beef-eating ancestors who had been around in Vienna in 1683 while the ] >city fought off the assault of the Turks and saved -- for a while, at ] >least -- Western civilization. ] ] As a half hungarian, I MUST protest. While Vienna entirely unprepared for ] defence against seige cowered in terror, a handful of hungarians, holed up ] like rats in a castle, fought the entire Turkish Army to a standstill until ] the winter. The Turks, unprepared for the bad weather went home again, and ] by the next year, Vienna had become fortified. ] ] Spoken like a whole hungarian! Adele is half also, so between you there is a whole one. (Her Dad came to the US in 56.) It's a very old family, and believe it or not the crest is ... the bloody head of a turk! Charming.

-E

Salut/Hi winemonger,

le/on 16 Jun 2004 18:38:54 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

Ah but that was the following year. The siege at the castle of Buk (if my memory serves me right) DID stop Mustafa but of course didn't prevent him for still wanting to take Vienna. So I think it was the following year that he came back, but by then Vienna was defended.

I don't think that's right, I'm not sure that Vienna ever fell.

Of course it didn't.

M.