Central/Eastern European cooking
"Let them eat cake"
Well - as always it depends on whether you are rich or poor - or it did in the past anyway.
I'm cooking David's special meal again tomorrow - he has missed out over the last two weeks for one reason or another - and he has requested sauerkraut. And sauerkraut itself deserves a post of its own, which I aim to do tomorrow. However, his request led me to my cookbook collection and the internet to find a suitable recipe.
But raiding my cookbook selection made me realise that I really do not have any 'modern' central and eastern European cookbooks, or, come to that, books by cooks who are heavily influenced by that cuisine, for, perhaps mistakenly, I thought that sauerkraut was a central and eastern European thing.
I had four 'ancient books' - The Continental Flavour by Nika Standen-Hazelton, German Cooking by Robin Howe, Central European Cooking by Eva Bakos and Albert Kofranek, and the 2 volumes from the Time-Life Foods of the World series - Germany and Austria's Empire. None of them are by household names and I know of no household names or super trendy chefs from those areas either. I couldn't find any on the net either.
But why? Why is this mode of cooking not a big thing on the trendy cooking scene? It's not that we lack immigrants from there after all. Post war we had Jews from all over Europe, then we had the postwar 'peasant' immigrants - the Italians and the Greeks mostly but also Yugoslavians as they were then. Then we had the refugees from Eastern Europe's oppressive regimes - those from the Hungarian and Czech revolutions in particular. Together with the general continual influx. And yes there are little enclaves - St. Kilda, Caulfield, Elsternwick et al. in particular, and the cake shops there are famous, but I cannot think of a single 'name' restaurant in Melbourne which is focussed on those cuisines. Not that I'm a connoisseur of the trendy Melbourne restaurant scene.
I asked the question of Google but got no answer really, other than to discover that in England it is becoming a thing - but then they had that influx of Polish plumbers didn't they? I also found, however, that if I had thought about it, we actually do eat a lot of Central and Eastern European food without really realising it - Polish sausage anyone? Footy franks, dill pickles, gherkins, speck, and all those other sausages like bratwurst and cabana, schnitzel and chicken kiev as well. Not to mention strudel, and sacher torte, linz torte and cheesecake. Yes cake and sausages would seem to be the thing.
The other thing I found was that the definition of what is Central Europe and what is Eastern Europe is vague, which is why I have lumped them together. My Central European Cooking book included Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (we are talking almost ancient history here, as some of them do not exist any more), and Romania but not Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany or the Baltic States. Time-Life included Yugoslavia but not Germany or Poland. Me - in my head I guess I mean everything that was behind the Iron Curtain + what was West Germany and Austria - but not Switzerland. Time-Life focussed on the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled by the Habsburgs from 1282-1918 - now I did not know that - hence the exclusion of Poland and Germany. Geographically you could lump together everything along the Danube but that would exclude Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. Whatever definition you choose though the fact of the matter is that it's a huge area, and therefor the cuisine is diverse - and yet - it also has a huge number of things in common - those sausages, the sauerkraut, the fruit - plums and cherries in particular spring to mind, potatoes, dumplings, beetroot and the cakes. Never forget the cakes.
Really it's a bit of a paradox. An area so vast with so many, many ethnic groups, languages, religions and traditions - tribes almost, such diverse geography and climate - and yet so homogenous in many of its foods. Like central Asia it's a crossroads between the west and the east which has merged the two into its own unique cuisine.
"Each section influenced the others - to the point where it is often impossible to tell which dish originated where, or who copied whom. At the same time, each little national group clung fiercely to its individual identity, jealously preserving its own characteristics." George Lang - Time Life - The Cooking of Vienna's Empire
For over 600 years there was one ruler of this vast area, holding together this multitudinous group of ethnicities. Then the USSR took over for 70 or 80 years, and now the whole of Europe it seems is dividing up into ever smaller and smaller countries whilst at the same time merging together into the European Union. Only time will tell which will win out.
"One of the most fundamental mistakes people make is to either consciously or subconsciously view Eastern European countries as a single entity – a view which stems from decades of being hidden behind the Iron Curtain. This has led to various assumptions about its cuisine." Clare Finney
And I suppose I am making those same assumptions. I still think that there is a sort of homogeneity about it all - the favoured spices of paprika, caraway, dill and poppy seed, the sour cream, the sausages, the stews - and the cakes. I also think that the assumption is that it is indeed all sausage and sauerkraut and what can be interesting about that? But here I would point out that two of the most popular stalls in Queen Victoria Market are the one selling bratwurst and sauerkraut hot dogs, and the one selling a vast variety of Polish sausages. Both of them always have queues. It's got the same sort of reputation as English food really and both, in a way, related to WW2. In England's case the austerity and forced plainness of English food, and in Central and Eastern Europe the austerity and lack of food of the USSR. They are both grim and so we assume that the food is grim too.
"It was mainly the interplay of Austrian and Hungarian cooking that shaped the Danubian cuisine." George Lang
Well let's not also forget the influences of the lands on either side - the French and the Italians, the Turks and their Ottoman Empire which included the whole of the Middle East and, of course, Russia. It's a bridge between cuisines that has forged its own unique identity out of a variety of outside influences whilst fiercely maintaining its very local customs.
And today?
"traditions are great – but to make them work here, we need to assimilate – to accommodate the ingredients and the tastes of elsewhere in the world." Olia Hercules
We need one of those brilliant fusion chefs to reintroduce these wonderful things, and make us realise the value of what we already have. Those cakes!!
