In Search of Comfort Food in Germany and Austria

IN SEARCH OF COMFORT FOOD IN GERMANY&AUSTRIA
LOOK FOR THE GIANT YELLOW CHICKEN

On a driving trip from Munich to Salzburg, my friend and I soon tired of eating baguette sandwiches in the car, and longed for a good, hot meal reminiscent of American diner food in both taste and price.

As the golden arches are to America’s favorite fast food chain, so is the giant yellow chicken to Germany and Austria’s favorite breakfast and late-night nosh place, Wienerwald. Although the name might suggest a hot dog emporium, it really means Vienna Forest. I’m not sure what that has to do with the chain’s specialty, chicken. In fact, for a long time, we thought Wienerwald meant “world of chicken”!

Wienerwald, Germany’s oldest multiunit restaurant company, is actually more like a Bavarian Denny’s than a McDonalds. . Instead of a Grand Slam, you might choose the Farmer’s Breakfast, a frittata with everything in it but the kitchen sink. Ham, cheese, peppers, mushroom ,potatoes, and Wienerwald’s signature stroganoff sauce make a filling breakfast without breaking your budget. While it’s not quite as inexpensive as a $2.99 Grand Slam, the hearty Farmer’s Breakfast still comes in at under $7 U.S.

One of the few full-service restaurants that is open late at night ,Wienerwald is also the diner of choice for the nightclub and musician set, offering their full menu until 3 a.m. My favorite après club meal was a grilled chicken breast smothered with the rich stroganoff sauce atop a mountain of rostii, the local take on hash browns.

And, if you’re not quite ready to call it a night, unlike Denny’s, at Wienerwald you can get a shot of schnapps or a mug of Stiegl beer to accompany your meal. The family style seating can accommodate parties of twelve or more easily, and the cheery red and yellow décor features an infinite variety of kitschy chicken artwork.

It’s also a good choice for families with small children , whose picky palates are often hard to please in a foreign country. Wienerwald offers the international favorite of toddlers, chicken fingers accompanied with French fries, rostii , or a vegetable.

Wienerwald will never make the Michelin or Zagat guide books. It’s a comfort food restaurant where people of all nationalities can find a breakfast, lunch, or dinner that reminds them of home. Culinary snobs may call us “gastronomically challenged” ,but as someone who travels on a limited budget, to me Wienerwald and that giant yellow chicken are a welcome sight.

The Baguette Lady

THE BAGUETTE LADY

They say it’s a long, downward spiral into addiction, but for me, all it took was one short week. In two days, I was completely obsessed. By day four, I was getting cranky until I got my “fix”. By the end of the week, I was totally hooked. I had become a baguette lady.

It happened on my first trip to Paris with a group of talented, but starving, musicians. On tour, if you’re getting $35 a day per diem for food, a musician will spend $10 of that to eat, and save the rest for shopping or something fun. It’s an unspoken rule that you NEVER, EVER use any of your own money for anything while on the road.

On this trip, we discovered the baguette and its many uses. Not that this was in any way a real hardship—there’s nothing in the world as good as a fresh-from-the-oven loaf of French bread.

For the very freshest baguettes, you must get up early in the morning and head to the neighborhood boulangerie (bakery). Along with your daily bread, pick up a still-warm croissant to munch on the way back to your room. They’re so flavorful that adding butter and jam would almost detract from the taste.

Now you must decide how to prepare and ration your baguette for the day. Perhaps you should have a few slices with strawberry jam and your second cup of coffee. Then you must decide whether to make one huge ham and cheese sandwich or three small ones from the remainder of your 2-foot-long loaf. Of course, you could also spread some slices with a soft cheese, and pick up a bottle of red wine for an afternoon picnic by the Seine.

If you’re not an early riser, and most musicians are not so inclined, you can buy pre-made baguette sandwiches from numerous markets and street vendors throughout the city. You will still have to decide between “jambon” (ham), “fromage” (cheese), or “jambon et fromage”. The earlier you pick up your sandwich, the better, as baguettes only have a shelf life of a few hours. This is due to the fact that the different kind of flour used in their preparation has no preservatives. Of course, the clever and thrifty French have created uses for rock-hard bread, inventing among other things, French toast and croutons.

You have to understand that for passionate bread-lovers, this is a loaves-and-fishes kind of thing that appeals to the soul and to the senses, as well as the pocketbook.

If you’re a carb-counting, fat-free fanatic worried about your cholesterol level and caloric intake, you won’t properly appreciate the finer points of my addiction to the baguette. If I die of a heart attack while munching on a crusty, aromatic hunk of bread in Paris, then I’ll die a happy woman. And, as far as weight-watching goes, what better place to have love handles than in the City of Love itself?