The forests are literally bursting at the moment with wild Austrian food!
Wild mushrooms, blueberries and cranberries lure every passerby to forage and take their fill. These pics are of ceps, which would cost you around £90GBP per kilo in the British deli supermarkets – a before and after pic.
Wild Austrian Food
If they’re really fresh and firm, like these chaps, we breadcrumb and make schnitzels out of them, or add them to any number of traditional Austrian meals and dishes (read on below for traditional Salzburg and Carinthia regions dishes!) but meantime…Mahlzeit!
Jodi
Gourmet Austria
According to tasteofaustria.org, Austria is made up of many small regions. Each one has its individual, unmistakable cultural identity. And, of course, each region has its own culinary specialties – another reason for the wide variety of Austrian products, which melt in the mouths of people everywhere. Together, the regions, each with their own individual culinary offerings, make up one large brand: Gourmet Austria. Here are a few dishes of the Salzburg Region and nearby Carinthia…enjoy the read!
Gourmet Austria – SALZBURG
Capital City: Salzburg
Population: 534,270
Land surface area: 25.358 sq mi
Agricultural area: 271,871 hectares
POTATOES
Over half of Salzburg potatoes are cultivated in the Lungau, a highly fertile region in the south east of the federal state. The Lungau is an inneralpine region which gives it its special climate and vegetation and makes it together with its organic and humus rich soil especially suitable for the cultivation of potatoes. Those “Eachtlinge”, as the potatoes from the region are called, are particularly rich in vegetable protein, vitamins, and minerals and can be used in a wide variety of popular potatoe dishes.
CHEESE
Salzburg too, like its neighbor Upper Austria, is famous for the production of various cheese specialities. Cheese in Austria is typically enjoyed on a slice of bread with butter either for dinner at home, as a snack on the go, or at one of the typical “Heurige” (wine taverns) with a glass of this year’s wine or must. Cheese specialities from Salzburg are, for example, hay-milk cheese from the northern region of Flachau or the South of Salzburg, or “Bierkäse” (beer cheese) from the Pinzgau, a region in the West of Salzburg. Hay-milk cheese producers from Salzburg are especially proud of using only this particularly natural milk, which comes from cows that are free to graze on the lush meadows of Salzburg during the summer and enjoy only the best hay during the winter. “Bierkäse” is especially known for its aromatic taste while only having a diet-friendly fat contet of 15%.
Gourmet Austria – KÄRNTEN or CARINTHIA
Capital City: Klagenfurt
Population: 558,300
Land surface area: 3,682.65 sq mi
Agricultural area: 310,067 hectares
HONIG
The beautiful and sunny Carinthia is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Austria during the summer offering clear lakes and manifold opportunities for leisure activities. It is hardly surprising that bees too feel comfortable in this pleasant climate and so it happens that Carinthia is famous for its delicious honey production. More classical sorts like wild honey and floral honey are complemented by more particular creations such as cream honey or alpine rose honey. The honey, produced by the so-called Carnica bees of the Rosental, enjoys a particularly good reputation. The wild honey is known to be especially aromatic and in general is not as sweet as other kinds of honey.
BEEF, HAM & SAUSAGES
Carinthia is also very well-known for its production of high-quality meat and meat-products. Different varieties of bacon and sausages, such as the “Gurktaler Luftgeselchter Speck”, a special “smoked” bacon, which finishes ripening on the fresh air of Gurktal and the “Jauntaler salami”, which is a pure pork sausage with a well-rounded taste, are produced in this area. Praising the products’ quality there are even festivals during the summer where people select the “salami princess” and the “salami king” of Carinthia. Furthermore, different kinds of beef and game and lamb are famous for the region.
BROWN TROUT
The history of the “Kärntna Låxn“, a kind of brown trout, dates back to the 14th century, when fish deliveries were made from Carinthia to the Imperial Court in Vienna in the 14th century. Back in the day, this fish used to be very common in Carinthia’s lakes and, for a few years now, cultivators have successfully bred it again, making it a popular delicacy. The fish are able to grow up slowly and species-appropriate in the very clear water of the mountains, which guarantees an extraordinarily high quality.
