When you picture the Italian countryside, you think of hand-rolled pastas, fresh produce, and wine from local vineyards. When you imagine time in Spain, you might think of spicy flavorful sauces and paella. And when you think of Austria, you think of….sausages?
It’s a cold truth that Austria is neither known nor loved for its food globally. Surrounded by countries admired for their éclairs, pizza and champagne, Austria doesn’t get a lot of time in the culinary spotlight. When was the last time you heard anyone say they were craving Austrian for dinner?
I left the US fully braced for a semester of loving the location but hating the food. My understanding of Austrian food and drink began and ended with sausage and beer, two things I was not overly optimistic about.
I’ve now been here a month and I’ve learned to navigate both the good and the bad of Austrian cuisine. They do use a lot of sausages in their cooking. That’s not a stereotype; that’s just super accurate. Any little market or populated area you walk through will have at least one cart selling Kaserwurst and Bosnas. That’s okay, because I’ve learned to love hot dogs and sausages since coming here, even though I used to hate them! The beer, I’m afraid, I have not developed a taste for, so that’s deeply engrained cultural convention that I’ll have to miss out on.
Some Austrian food I like, some I don’t. It’s a lot of pork, which I’m not a big fan of. It’s also a lot of bread, which I’m AM a huge fan of.
My meals on the weekends I cook for myself (and I use “cook” in the loosest sense) but my weekday meals are split between the dorm cafeteria for breakfast and dinner and a dining room the school arranged for us to eat lunch in. The dining room hasn’t been my favorite so far, and I would call it the bad side of Austrian food. On the flip side, the dorm food is so much better than I ever dreamed a small kitchen at a school could be, and has really taught me to love a lot of Austrian cuisine. I look forward to dinner every single night. It’s an amazing feeling when you’re tired and hungry in your last class and you know there’s a delicious warm meal waiting for you.
I know they say the Europeans eat less, but I’ve been served plenty of sizable meals here. The only time I noticed a portion change was when I ordered a small soda at McDonalds (very authentic, I know) and was served in a glorified espresso cup.
Eating out has required some adjustment, as there’s a large difference between the service industries in America and Austria. In Austria, servers aren’t going to attend to your every need or bend over backwards for you. They’re just going to serve you food.
For those weekends that I am “cooking” (I have yet to actually use the oven, guys), I’ve been able to get affordable groceries at a cheap price. The stores nearby don’t seem to cater to microwave chefs like me, and there isn’t an Easy Mac container in sight, sadly. However, they do have peanut butter, which isn’t that common in Europe, so I’m all set.
