I visited Vienna in the summer of 1999. It was to be my grand tour of Europe - a time of revelation - like Isabel Archer's trip to Europe (replete with beautiful art and unfortunate incidents in Italy). Vienna was HG's idea. She had taken a course in architecture at Yale and wanted to see the great wonders of Europe in person.
I don't remember a great deal now about our five days in Vienna, but I do remember being disappointed. I could only think of what once was, circa 1890s, before the madness of the World Wars. What was St. Stephen's Cathedral without its patchwork green, black and yellow roof, like a crazy quilt coming apart at its seams? Having seen almost every surviving Klimt at the Osterreichische Museum für Angewandte Kunst, I couldn't help feeling the loss of the four burned by the Nazis in their desperate retreat from the advancing Allied line. Visiting the Schoenbrunn Palace - still boasting impressive rooms and one of the largest hedge garden mazes in the world - I couldn't help but wonder, while reading about Empress Sisi, what this place was like when it was the throbbing center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What's the point of a Ringstrasse anyway, if there are no luxurious carriages to parade on it? Beautiful as Vienna was, it only seemed to be a pale, starving waif of a city compared to what it must have been over a century ago.
Regardless, there was one thing that I remember differently. HG suggested going to the Hotel Sacher to have a slice of Sachertorte and she was quite keen on it. The words meant nothing to me at the time except that I remembered faintly from my year of German lessons that "torte" meant cake. We arrived at the the hotel and ordered a slice each of very expensive chocolate cake. It was heavenly. Not too sweet. Just a little tart. Served with a dollop of Schlagsahne. Perfect. If nothing else, I was eating like an Empress.
A few days ago, I had some vistors from Austria. I had never met them before and was not quite sure what to expect, but they did bring me something familiar as a gift from Austria: the famous Viennese Sachertorte. As the brochure included with the cake tells you, "The history of the world-famous Original Sachertorte began in 1832, when the 16 year-old apprentice cook Franz Sacher created this dessert at the court of Price Metternich. In the meantime, it has become the most famous torte in the world and the hand-written recipe is a "state secret" of the hotel."
Despite the Hotel's efforts at keeping the public from its recipe, the Internet can tell you at least this much: "The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate dough with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing with shreds of chocolate on the top and sides." And no matter how the cake was baked, it was delicious. It reminded me of carefree days in Central Europe and absolute decadence.
I don't remember a great deal now about our five days in Vienna, but I do remember being disappointed. I could only think of what once was, circa 1890s, before the madness of the World Wars. What was St. Stephen's Cathedral without its patchwork green, black and yellow roof, like a crazy quilt coming apart at its seams? Having seen almost every surviving Klimt at the Osterreichische Museum für Angewandte Kunst, I couldn't help feeling the loss of the four burned by the Nazis in their desperate retreat from the advancing Allied line. Visiting the Schoenbrunn Palace - still boasting impressive rooms and one of the largest hedge garden mazes in the world - I couldn't help but wonder, while reading about Empress Sisi, what this place was like when it was the throbbing center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What's the point of a Ringstrasse anyway, if there are no luxurious carriages to parade on it? Beautiful as Vienna was, it only seemed to be a pale, starving waif of a city compared to what it must have been over a century ago.
Regardless, there was one thing that I remember differently. HG suggested going to the Hotel Sacher to have a slice of Sachertorte and she was quite keen on it. The words meant nothing to me at the time except that I remembered faintly from my year of German lessons that "torte" meant cake. We arrived at the the hotel and ordered a slice each of very expensive chocolate cake. It was heavenly. Not too sweet. Just a little tart. Served with a dollop of Schlagsahne. Perfect. If nothing else, I was eating like an Empress.
A few days ago, I had some vistors from Austria. I had never met them before and was not quite sure what to expect, but they did bring me something familiar as a gift from Austria: the famous Viennese Sachertorte. As the brochure included with the cake tells you, "The history of the world-famous Original Sachertorte began in 1832, when the 16 year-old apprentice cook Franz Sacher created this dessert at the court of Price Metternich. In the meantime, it has become the most famous torte in the world and the hand-written recipe is a "state secret" of the hotel."
Despite the Hotel's efforts at keeping the public from its recipe, the Internet can tell you at least this much: "The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate dough with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing with shreds of chocolate on the top and sides." And no matter how the cake was baked, it was delicious. It reminded me of carefree days in Central Europe and absolute decadence.
No comments:
Post a Comment