mmm... lecker (delicious)!

Five minutes ago, I really didn't feel like blogging so I decided to go to the chocolate shop next door... After biting into some cherry-brandy-cream-and-marzipan-filled organic, fair trade dark chocolate, I now feel entirely inspired to write about my experience with food in Wien.


But before I go on, yesterday I was at the train station buying a ticket from here to Bari (where I will take a train to the small village of Gravina in Puglia, the home base for my archeology course) and just because it worked out nicely, I decided to include a stopover in Venedig.
Venedig? For any non-German speakers or trivia addicts, that's the German name for Venice, or Venezia as they call it there. Now maybe you could have guessed that, but would you guess that Cologne is actually Köln (with the "ö" pronounced like the "oe" in Schoenberg or the "eu" in adieu) or that Florence is actually Firenze? And there are so many more examples! Therefore, for anyone who would one day like to visit one (or more) of the places I'm writing about and not come off as a completely ignorant North American tourist - and because I feel like I'm in Wien, Österreich, not Vienna, Austria -, from now on, when a foreign name comes up, I will only give the anglicised version the first time, and stick to the original thereafter.


Food is not only one of the more noticeable differences between cultures, but it also one of the most enjoyable aspects to experience and to talk (or blog) about. Having lived one year in Mount Allison's "Sustainable Residence" I'm going to have to take it right from the start.

In the beginning...
Although, I haven't visited any farms around here, it's easy to see that there's a real affinity for organics. Every couple of days, Biggi's aunt receives a basket of various organic vegetables through some type of co-op. One can also get fruit and add restrictions to the distance your produce comes from: within Wien, Österreich, all of Europe, etc. There's also a wide selection of local and organic foods in the grocery stores with a special label (like those we use for items on sale in Canada) for items from withing the country. Moreover, there are many small shops that only sell local produce. Of course, there are also bakeries all over, and gourmet ice cream and sweet shops scattered across the city...

"We owe much to the fruitful meditation of our sages, but a sane view of life is, after all, elaborated mainly in the kitchen." Joseph Conrad
Although the following description may not be typical of a larger household, I do get the impression that it is normal for one of less than 4 people.
In the kitchen here, everything is so compact; not a square inch of space is left unused. In the first picture, you see the distance between the sink on the right and the counter on the left is equal to my waist plus one fist - obviously not build for North Americans. The washing machine (not dishwasher, because there is none), is found under the counter, in the corner, and is connected directly to the sink. The curtain on the right hand side of the first photo is the same curtain as the one on the left of the second picture: the shower curtain. Luckily, only 2 hot meals have been prepared in the house over the last 10 days, so if someone is in the kitchen when you want to shower, the can usually migrate to another room. In the 3rd photo, you see that on the wall opposite the window (in the first picture) there is a bench against the wall (that also serves as a storage chest) and a table, the dinner table, that pulls out of the counter. You can also see a cutting board that also pulls out of the counter for a little extra space, when it's needed. Finally, there's the little fridge under the counter (beside the stove) - no freezer or microwave.


You do WHAT at COSTCO?!?!
With such limited space, especially refrigerated space, bulk shopping just couldn't work here. To supplement the vegetables that get delivered, every couple of days we pick up some milk, juice, bread, and any other little things that may be needed from a grocery store or a little shop (e.g. a bakery for the bread). No freezer obviously means no frozen foods, and in this household, meat is somewhat of a rarity that we might have once a week.

Among students, maybe adults too, picking up a sandwich or stopping at a Lokal for lunch seems more popular that packing one or going home to eat. And with some many great places to eat, why not! Some of the more interesting places where I've stopped for lunch include a Georgian restaurant (the initial interest came from the shameful fact that I had never heard of Georgia, the country, but with the arrival of our food, the interest was more than sustained) and a seafood restaurant where I had something like bruchetta with caviar.

The Italian restaurant we went to was also notable, not particularly for its scrumptious food, but because I could actually understand most of the menu (which was in Italian with German translations)! Names of foods here seems to be quite dialectic so even with Biggi along (who has been here since October and has eaten out more than a couple of times), it's often quite difficult to decipher the menus and I usually end up ordering an item based on a pretty limited understanding (e.g. "some kind of bread with tomato, something, some kind of sheep cheese, something, and some kind of sauce")

Guten Appetit!
As I mentioned, we don't have too many hot meals at home: breakfast usually consists of cereal with fresh fruit and the rest of the day is mostly snacking on different types of bread, crackers, rice cakes, etc. with spreads, cheese, and/or vegetables, and occasionally a salad. One morning, when I offered to make dinner, I gained a little insight into the reasons behind this different way of eating. I was told that it was a bad day to make something first because it was too hot to have a big meal, and second because there was already food that should be eaten before it went bad (i.e. lettuce, tomatoes, bread). Another factor I imagine comes into play is energy conservation: naturally, heating food (in the absence of a microwave) requires a lot of energy, so if one can avoid it, all the better!

And this concludes my attempt to describe something that is really not meant to be described in words. Time for another trip to the chocolate shop!