A Glimpse into Imperial Austria by Ruth Paget
To Set Before the King: Katharina Schratt’s Festive Recipes is an annotated original source material of loosely written recipes prepared for Emperor Franz Joseph 1 of Austria and King of Hungary by Katharina Schratt, the lead actress of the Court Theatre Company in Vienna.
Katharina prepared the 146 appetizers and main dishes and 158 dessert dishes for not only the Emperor, but also crowned heads of state, leading industrialists, and diplomats. Schratt reported the details of her luncheons with these notables of the world to the Emperor during weekly lunches and kaffee klatsches with him.
The recipes themselves are notes written with no measures and vague directions. The recipes do provide a privileged glimpse into an elite larder which has the ingredients for sophisticated dishes as well as comfort foods of the Habsburg Empire.
The recipes are not in alphabetical order, but the book has an index and numbers the recipes for quick reference. In the 21st century, it is easy to look up precise recipes for these dishes online.
I am familiar with three of the recipes from Schratt’s recipe list thanks to living in Stuttgart (Germany), Madison (Wisconsin), and Detroit (Michigan):
Recipe #83 – Swabian Spätzle Noodles
These noodles are made with flour, eggs, salt, and water that is formed into an elastic dough. The dough is rolled out into long, narrow strips that are shaved into boiling water. When cooked, they are served with butter and parsley.
I first ate spätzle at a restaurant in Madison (Wisconsin) that was located in a converted train station. (I think the restaurant was called The Depot.)
I liked eating a plate of spätzle followed by vegetable soup in winter and salad in summer. The restaurant also served charcuterie boards and cheese boards. Dessert may have been seasonal fruit salad. (American has many train depots in little country towns that could easily offer this type of menu. In California, Grange Halls might be interested in this kind of restaurant as well.)
Spätzle are originally from Swabia, the region around Stuttgart, Germany. I did make some when I lived in Germany, but called them maltagliatelle (badly made tagliatelle in Italian). The ingredients are the same as Italian tagliatelle and flour gnocchi and English Yorkshire pudding.
Recipe #32 Fritto Misto
You know these recipes are meant for the king when you consider that Austria is landlocked and far from the sea. This dish calls for an abundance of lightly floured seafood deep-fried in new oil no doubt.
Recipe #138 Hungarian Cabbage Rolls
These are different from Polish cabbage rolls, but equally good.
For this recipe, you make a roux and add it to sauerkraut, which is placed in the bottom of a baking dish. Then, you blanch cabbage leaves and pull them apart.
The cabbage leaves are stuffed with chopped port, onions, parsley, salt, and eggs. The rolls are placed on top of the sauerkraut. Cream mixed with paprika is poured over the rolls with a few strips of bacon placed on top of the cream. The rolls are baked and served piping hot.
Finally, rice sausages seem to be the potato chips of the Habsburg Empire and are a new recipe for me that works well in California, which grows rice.
Recipe #27 Rice Sausages
Cook rice in milk, salt it, and allow it to cool. Form sausages out of the rice and fry them.
Readers who might enjoy To Set Before the King: Katharina Schratt’s Festive Recipes includes cooks and diners with Austrian and Hungarian ancestry and students of history.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games