Welcome to the Heart of Europe

A baby's first word may come quite unexpectedly during lunch time. And it may not be the usual "Mama" or "Papa" resp. "Dada" but something completely different... As we go on describing delicious Austrian dishes, including the all-time favourtite "Emperor's Delight", we have to confess that one of the first full sentences our youngest kid learned under American-Italian influence would be: "Order Pizza!" No kidding!


Famous First Word during E.A.T.-ing

Table Talk. One day my kids came up with the abbreviation E.A.T. It stands for "Eating Anything Tasty!" You may teach kids not to talk while eating, but there is one exception when a word during a meal can cause excitement: If it is the very first word! Usually you expect a baby's first word to be "Mama" or "Papa," a real competition among parents. But sometimes things turn out different than you would have expected. Sitting on my lap, as I fed the little guy Lasagne baby food, he spit a spoonful out and said a word that sounded like: "Pfui!" - the German expression for "Yuck!" Big was our excitement about the first "real" sound. In a way we were relieved that he didn't immediately start swearing "Pfui Deibel (Yuck, the Devil)." As by our book "Yum! Yuck! A Foldout Book for People Sounds" - from the author of the animal sounds-book "Mung-Mung", other translations of the displeasing sound include "Guacala" (Spanish), "Pwah" (French), "Foo" (Russian) and Oo-wek (Korean)!

International Ickisms. The vocabulary of disgust such as "ick," "yuck" or "ew" - may be deeply rooted in the natural instinct and embodied cognition of expelling unwanted, possibly poisonous substances from the mouth. The sounds are created by closing the back of the mouth, in order to block the entrance to the food canal, and opening the front to spit it out. Reminding of language used in comic books, in the meantime the same sound words are quite popular on the internet as short descriptions of one's emotional state. In many languages there are similar sounds of disappointment, disapproval and disgust. The English "phooey," a variant of "phew," is quite close to the German "pfui." As are the Spanish "puaj," the Polish "pfuj" and the Czech "fuj." In French there is "berque" and in Italy you would say "bleah" (similar to the German "baeh"). "Tu" or "pu" is the same in Turkish. In Japan people say "gu-we" or even "o-wek" like in Korea, in China they say "pei!" The Swiss German "gruusig" seems to be a dialect version of "grauslich (Engl. gross)." And the Danish "ad" is short for "bvadr." What do you say?

Live, Eat, Sleep. We eat to live, although some people live to eat... Kids usually get the first soft food when they are somewhere in between 3 or 4 months old. When milk alone does not satisfy their appetite, you need to start feeding them solids additionally to liquid. As they grow up, they might go back to more and more liquid or liquor again, but that is a different story. This page is dedicated to baby's first supper! Why in the world did we feed them all carrots as if they were rabbits? Possibly to sharpen their eyesight and not in order to give them orange skin. And they all sat in their "convertible" high chair, which could be later used as their first little table and chair. Upon sharing above story, by the way, we received the following advice: "It is a gourmet baby you have - better sharpen up on your cooking!" As the little guy is sitting on my lap right now and tries to hit the keyboard, too, I need to keep this text short...

On the far left you see the "Benjamin of the family" in carrot make-up, following in the footprints of his big brother, not watching but eating everything, and big sister, when she was small.

Eating Habits

Fast Life & Food. These days more and more people are in a rush and recognize that anything you can hold in the hand goes faster down. As more and more hot dog stands change owner and become kebab take-aways instead, the supply is satisfying the demand. And there are many people, who just "grab a burger with fries" instead of taking time for a decent, well-balanced meal. These days, unhealthy food starts turning us into couch potatoes, a 20th century North American import. Just as the original potato plant found its way to the old world in the 16th century, coming from South America to Spain, where it became known as "patata." The Standard German word "Kartoffel" is a reference to the Italian word "tartufo(lo)", describing another underground bulb, namely truffles.

Potato Wordplay. In the fore field of joining the European Union, the fear had come up of losing local Austrian-German expressions like "Erdaepfel" for potatoes, similar to the French "pommes de terre," apples that grow in the ground. Also Swiss-German and the Allemanian-German dialect would know the term, just pronouncing it more like "Haerdoepfu." For a while the root vegetable became something like a symbol for identity crisis among "two nations separated by the same language." That would include potato chips - in the UK called crisps, I guess, commonly known as "Kartoffelchips" in Germany and "Erdaepfelchips" in Austria, where they would occasionally also go by the name "Rohscheiben - raw slices?" Combining word references for the cracking noise during eating and stimulating tension in the air, the promotional slogan for the potato snack would rhyme: "Kelly's bringt Knistern ins Leben - Kelly's gets your life cracking!"

America dreams of it: Kelly's potato chips made in Austria!

EAT-Confusion. Reading the title of this page, some might anticipate a typo, and the abbreviation E.A.T. being mixed up with E.T.A. for Estimated Time of Arrival. In times, where speedy reaction becomes essential for survival, little mistakes creep in when firing out an e-mail too quickly or posting an online comment too hastily. For at the end of the day there is a bargain of time versus quality. To increase the level of absurdity, E.T.A. on the other hand could have been confused with ETNA, which is... a volcano in Sicily, Italy. But be assured, there is no mistake here, we meant to speak of E.A.T., which is no more and no less than an acronym we made up ourselves. "Eat Anything Tasty" may be just a word play but it also rings a bell. It makes us reminiscent our favourite food. Would it be Viennese Schnitzel-cutlet or Hungarian Goulash, would it be Bohemian Apricot Dumplings or Ice Cream Apricot Dumplings created by the Tichy Ice Cream Saloon in the tenth district of Vienna, would it be the world famous Apple Strudel or the rather unknown spicy Bean Strudel, do we think of crepes filled with jam or even grandma's famous "Emperor's Delight", a desert made of pancake dough that had already delighted the legendary Austrian Monarch Francis Joseph, the longest-ruling sovereign in Europe and husband of immortal Empress Sissi...

"Grosse Dinge zu vollbringen, war mein allergroesster Wunsch, grosse Dinge an die kleine Buben glauben. Mittlerweile hat sich das alles sozusagen relativiert. Nur den Kaiserschmarrn, den taete ich gerne noch haben, der war ein Traum - Big Things to achieve was my biggest wish by far, big things little boys do believe in. In the meantime, it's put into perspective, so to speak. Just Grandma's pancake I would love to have again. That was like a dream."
(Georg Danzer, 1995, Grosse Dinge - Big Things)

The Story of Kaiserschmarrn

Emperor's Delight. In the forefront of the 1994 referendum on Austria's accession to the EU, the preservation of national identity and continuity in food labeling were part of very emotionally lead discussions. Huge billboards would promise "Erdaepfelsalat bleibt Erdaepfelsalat - Potato Salad stays Potato Salad!" and inspire a Danzer song of same title. Then he wrote another modern classic, reminiscenting "Big Things", he always wanted to achieve when he was a little boy, such as defeating bad dragons or freeing a princess, slapping the neighbour boy and peeking under the coat of the grocer's wife. When he returned home in the evening, dirty from another adventurous summer day on the countryside, his grandma used to preach, but in the end always generously served him a local speciality made of pancake dough. And this is its story...

Royal Speciality. "Kaiserschmarrn" or "Emperor's Delight" is a traditional Austrian dessert consisting of sliced pancake with raisins and powder sugar. It has been noted that it should have been originally called "Kaserschmarrn (cheese stew)", in reference to the cream cheese ingredient. But when the monarch's personal cook presented his new creation, the aged Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph didn't hear well and understood "Kaiserschmarrn", a name honoring him as "Kaiser (Emperor)". One isn't to contradict an Emperor, and as it probably was around end of month time, the chef agreed in order to secure his position at the Imperial Court. So much for reminiscences to the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Dry Delight. Of course, a colleague would have an anecdote of his own from times, when he was asked to pick up a pre-ordered meal on behalf of his direct superior, who regularly got stuck in meetings over lunch time. One shouldn't waste food for this is very bad, and so meek as a lamb he went to that oven, opened it and took out the thawed food container. As he raised the aluminum foil, if you carefully listened, you could hear that "gulp"-sound, whenever the instant meal revealed itself as dried up portion of "Kaiserschmarrn mit Zwetschkenroester" - "Emperor's Delight with Plum Roast Sauce". As part of common cultural heritage quite popular in Hungary, there the same bitter sweet dish is referred to as "csaszarmorzsa (tsar's crums)", in short "smarni". And also in Slovenia you can find the "carski prazenec", that ol' pancake of the tsar. A haunting experience.

Some eat to live - yet others live to eat... at least at an occasional restaurant visit to "Nailrider" on the weekend,
or how was that fancy place called again?

Austro-Hungarian Desert. The Hungarian word "smarni", just like the German "Schmarrn" probably originates from the culinary expression "Geschmortes" for anything stewed or fried. Its derogatory meaning in the context "such a nonsense (so ein Schmarrn)" goes back to another word accredited to Emperor Francis Joseph: "Now let me see what 'Schmarrn (hogwash)' our chef has cooked up today!" Another famous quote comes to mind: "I am also spared nothing (Mir mir bleibt auch nichts erspart)."

Between Christmas and New Year. Just thinking of these culinary delights, I am already gaining weight! Although: "It doesn't matter, how much you eat between Christmas and New Year. What matters is how much you eat between New Year and Christmas!" By the way: How do you find out, you are too big? If you lie on the beach and a group of Greenpeace activists comes by, who want to roll you back into the water... (Let's hope we never get confused with a whale, no matter how much"Kaiserschmarrn" we gulp down our throats!)

Austria dreams of it: Emperor's Delight aka Kaiserschmarrn (or what is left of it)
Click here to see Baby's First Easter. On the next page you will find more about Dog Food.