Burgenland

 

This is a sausage which consists of different pieces of meat and jelly.

 

Using the Grammeln and the Schmalz from the Sautanz, the older women will often bake Grammelpogatscherl with it, which is a very fat, salty and tasty little cookie. Ask for it.

Knoblauchwurst

Knoflwurst

 

Garlic-sausage you could translate it. Ask for it. You must not miss this, and you won't get it like that anywhere else than in Southern Burgenland. Take it on your plate in a big chunk and eat it with generous bites together with bread and the wine served. You can also cut it into slices and put it on a piece of bread, but this just isn't the whole thing.

Presswurst

Sulz

 

Together with all that, you will most likely be served a distilled transparent fluid called Schnaps, which has most likely also been made by the owner of the hog. It is made of distilled rotten fruit. You will rarely come to drink something as stiff like that, so don't miss it.

Other products

Of course, not all of the butchered hog is used at that occasion. Most of it is given to friends and neighbours and put into the fridge for the coming year.

 

Then, the fat of the hog is diced and cooked. The fat then starts separating from the tissue. The tissue is fried in the fat which was separated by cooking. The fried tissue itself, which looks like big brown bread crumbs is then called Grammeln sg. Grammel, the fat itself, which turns white and hard as butter when it is cold, Schmalz. And when the Grammeln are left in the Schmalz, this will be another local speciality called Grammelschmalz. Schmalz is the fat used for much of the traditional cooking in this area.

 

First of all, there will be a LOT of blood. But this is not shed. No. It is collected in a bucket and cooked until it is coagulated, with fat, cream and spices. This will be later filled into the cleaned gut of the hog. This is the Blutwurst, or often just called Blunzn pronounced: bloontsn. Sounds yummy? It really is, no matter how much you watch it being made.

Grammeln

Schmalz and grammelschmalz

 

In Mid and Southern Burgenland, and also in some parts of Styria, a procedure called Sautanz - "pig dance" takes place. This is, when a hog is butchered. But well, it is not done in some industrial way of killing. It is a celebration, where all friends and neighbours of the respective peasant, who owns the hog, are invited. Usually, a professional butcher is organised, who does the actual filleting with some better parts of the pig as payment. As a first step, the hog is let out of its cage, then the peasant tries to catch it and set the slaughtering pistol or sometimes, they use an axe for the same job. You will notice a loud and awful screaming of the hog, until it is caught and shot or cut. What is called "dance" is the running around before it is killed - poor pig. Well then, you have that hog right there, bleeding. What happens next? And what has all this to do with food?

buschenschank

The thing which is called "Heuriger" in Vienna and Lower Austria is called Buschenschank "bar in the bushes" in Southern Burgenland and South-Eastern Styria. This is where the peasants serve their own products without having to pay any gastronomy license fees. Drinks and food are extraordinarily cheap and tasty. You will get heurigen this year's wine and the products mentioned above, plus cheese and curd cheese made parfait.

You can order most of the products available served together on a plate, for one or more persons. This plate comes with additional sweet pepper, tomatoes, hot peppers, horseradish called Kren and bread. If you come to Burgenland in autumn, you are really bound to try this, it is an extraordinary culinaric experience you might never forget.

For drinking, you will be served white wine, red wine, Uhudler, Most or Sturm, the latter three is explained below at "Drinks", don't miss it!

When you decide to go to a Buschenschank, ask a resident where a good one takes place.