Wine and Food

Angerer Alm, Restaurant, Hochgurgl, Tirol, Austria

7 points

Imagine you are in the Alps: perhaps you associate this experience with some special music (hopefully not with DJ Ötzi, since then you would be a real freak, but perhaps with music of Hubert von Goisern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvaqDNEppwQ), and of course with a lot of amazing nature and countryside – but probably also with typical Alpine food. This could be “Leberknödelsuppe” (liver dumpling soup), “Kaiserschmarrn” (Kaiserschmarrn), “Schweinebraten” (roast pork) or, for example, venison. Alpine cuisine is “bodenständig” (this is a wonderful word in German, but you are damned if you need to translate this into English: it is probably a mixture of down-to-earth and native). In my experience, you either get rather cheap food which isn’t terribly delicious but is quite filling – and at least it’s affordable – or you get slightly “better” cuisine which can cost you a fortune, even though you know they haven’t used the freshest ingredients. In all likelihood, the meat was frozen and probably isn’t from Tirol but rather Slovakia. The chefs are probably not even the culprits; some smart managers of hotels and / or restaurants are likely to blame. Much of this kind of food is made quite cleverly and with a lot of “show”. After two or three days, you begin to realize that the sauce always tastes the same, no matter what kind of dish you’ve ordered. There is too much sugar in the salad dressing – you can tell that they’re using spice or herb mixes  for dressing, broths, and any kind of sauces. Quite an effort at deception !

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