Gourmet's Old Vienna Cookbook: A Viennese Memoir

From the inside frontWith its 1,200 delectable recipes and its charming evocations of life in a Viennese household, this book is the most comprehensive and delightful ever published on Viennese cooking. Lillian Langseth-Christensen’s love for the cuisine of Vienna and her understanding of all its nuances shine through every page – as she confides the culinary secrets she learned first-hand from the good Austrian cooks she has known since childhood.The recipes range from the simplest peasant fare to the fancy pastries and confections that are the pride of the Viennese. Starting with the tantalising appetite-stimulators known as Vorspeisen (a liver pâté studded with almonds, for instance, or a mushroom soufflé over a tart of dilled shrimp), Ms Langseth-Christensen leads us on to steaming soups invariably ladled out of a handsome tureen (the most important item in a bride’s hope chest) – soups that are garnished with shredded pancakes or pigeon eggs or dumplings. Then on to recipes for meat dishes – always treated with respect and finesse. Then vegetables, usually a separate course, turned into tarts and puddings or embellished with capers, crumbs, cheese, wild herbs. The art of making noodle dough – the first culinary accomplishment a Viennese mother teaches her daughter – is carefully detailed, as are the secrets of creating at home all the wonderful cakes and pastries that Sacher’s and Demel’s and Gerstner’s have made world famous.Rich and immensely satisfying, this is a lovely personal cookbook that typifies the gemütlichkeit of the Viennese way of life – a book that will long continue to endear itself to new generations of cooks. Read more