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Schnitz & Giggles
What happens when an American and an Austrian sit down together to debate culture? Is it going to be a victory for US? Will the Wiener take it all? Are they even making sense? Listen in and find out more about living la vida loca in Vienna & Austria.
We fry new episodes every other Thursday.
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Schnitz & Giggles
[S1E1] Why Wiener?
Prepare to be regaled with the quirkiest of Viennese tales as Dr. Schnitzel and Mr. Giggles unpack the legendary saga of "Wiener," a term that stands for so much more than just a juicy snack in the heart of Austria's capital. Whether you're an American stumbling over the linguistic hurdles or a local chuckling at the unsuspecting expat, our light-hearted banter promises to declutter the cultural cobwebs—and you might just find yourself falling for Vienna's charm, one "Wiener" at a time.
Explore the story of the unassuming immigrant who cooked up a world-renowned delicacy, and linger at the crossroads where sausages and society intertwine over philosophical banter. Vienna—Schnitzel is not the only thing this city has to offer.
Guten hallo and welcome to the Schnitzel and Giggles podcast Brought to you by the AL Weiss crackers. I'm here with my friend Lucas, sometimes known as Dr Schnitzel, my personal Austrian expert. Well, that's so nice of you to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's nice to have you. Thank you, and the lovely voice you just heard belongs to Mr Giggles, as I like to call him, aka Michael, and he's the American expat not an expert, but an expat. So you're spending time with me on a regular basis trying to figure out how to live life in Vienna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in this podcast we're going to talk about a whole lot of stuff about life in Vienna and kind of just for Schnitzel and Giggles. We'll talk about culture, things we see in the city, food, funny things that happen to us. Basically, whatever is happening in our lives here in Vienna we'll probably bring to this podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, and for all you internationals, we hope that this podcast is going to become a resource, helps you figure things out in life here, if you live in Vienna or if you're just thinking about moving here or just want to know more about this great city that we're in and for all you local veners with international friends, it'll help you understand the struggles that they face on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:So Lukas, what do you got today? Well, I think, to start us off, we really need to get something straight, because a lot of times when Americans come over and visit Vienna, they kind of get uncomfortable because they see something in the city. Not at the donau, Not at the donau, no, but they see something and they are somewhat irritated, I think. Irritated Because the question they ask and it's a fair question to be asking why the people in Vienna so obsessed about veners?
Speaker 1:We're going to go full middle school boy mode in this conversation. I think, yeah, I've experienced this. Yeah, I've had friends who have asked why veners were so prevalent or why the word vener was so prevalent. Prevalence president. Well, that couldn't be true. Oh, don't want to get into politics quite yet.
Speaker 2:The middle school class president is the? We'll cut that out, Maybe not. Well, the first problem is right here, because you pronounce it the wrong way. That's right. The next question is what?
Speaker 1:is the name of the place.
Speaker 2:The name of the place is Vienna, because the W is in German. As you already know, living here, it's like a V sound. So which comes back to the city of Vienna, in German is Wien, and something that comes from Vienna or even a person living in Vienna would be Wiener. So we have the Wiener-Linien, it's the Viennese transportation system. We have Wiener-Wirth, it's the Viennese forest, it's sugar, it's sugar.
Speaker 2:That's a problem for people sometimes, Sometimes, but that's as innocent as it is this word. So you see a lot of buildings. Something is Viennese. You will have the word Wiener on it.
Speaker 1:But I'm glad that you asked this question because I mean, I'm not sure if I asked this question or did I ask the question. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I brought this up in the first place. We'll go listen. The reason why the Americans have this word in their language has some interesting background story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because obviously the explanation that you just gave of why here in Vienna it's so regular makes total sense. Someone from Wien is a Wiener. Okay, okay, great, hey, what did you just call me? Hey, wait a minute. I remember growing up in the States that people didn't know that one day I was going to move to Vienna, and yet they would call me as someone who was living in.
Speaker 2:Vienna You're living in a.
Speaker 1:Mino city. Yeah, they were calling. They were prophets. Hmm. So how the heck Did you even call you Berliner? No, no, no, they didn't call me Berliner or Franksberger, or Hamburger, or Hamburger. But how the heck did middle school boys in America grab ahold of this word and start using it in the way that they use it?
Speaker 2:You know. So there's two possible explanations. One explanation is America is ruled by middle school boys. That's fair.
Speaker 1:But it's a funny sounding word sometimes too, so but we can dismiss that theory Correct.
Speaker 2:The second explanation is it's the question of where does the word come from. Where does the whole word that made it to the States come from? Of course it has to do something with Vienna, but what exactly is it? Because I've heard in when I go to the States can I go and buy some Wiener.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think like yeah, I mean, if you buy a hot dog, I think it would be packaged as a Wiener, yeah, so we're talking about sausages here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hot dogs. Okay. The funny thing is, if you are in Vienna and you want to order some sausage, there is something called Wienerwurst, but it's actually not the same kind of sausage you're having in mind. Yeah, because if you have the same kind of sausage that you get in the States, in Vienna you actually call it Frankfurter.
Speaker 1:And to that point too, like in the States, there's also Frankfurter For some reason. Yeah, like I think sometimes like a Frankfurter would be like somebody's being kind of trying to be extra fancy. Like a Frankfurter is a fancy Wiener. Okay, but maybe correct me if I'm wrong in the comments listeners but both of the words are used in the States to refer to a standard hot dog sausage. But why?
Speaker 2:But why? It all comes down to this guy, Johann Georg Lahnner. Can you see it?
Speaker 1:Johann Georg Lahnner, herr Lahnner, herr Lahnner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was a guy. Okay, guess where he was born, where he was from, where is German-sounding name? Of course, yeah, so you're from Vienna.
Speaker 1:No, but he lived in Vienna. He lived in Vienna for a while. Okay, yes, is he German or Austrian? He's actually German, he's German.
Speaker 2:So take a second Leipzig. I think he just said the answer Frankfurt Exactly.
Speaker 1:All right, just two seconds ago you had the answer All right.
Speaker 2:So this guy Frankfurt Frankfurt. He came from Frankfurt to Vienna. His job was I don't even know what to call it in English how do you call someone who makes sausages while living Sausage?
Speaker 1:maker. I don't Great, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably some French name for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if there'd be a French name for sausage maker, maybe.
Speaker 2:Tell us in the comments below yes, please, we need some education here. So he was a young man who moved to Vienna. He was from like a farmer's family, but he knew how to make sausages and, as the story goes, he fell in love. Love is always important. It's just love in the life. It's the core of a human life.
Speaker 1:It's just love, or in this airline I'm going to stop. Yeah, okay, it's not middle school.
Speaker 2:So he fell in love with a baroness here in Vienna, as one does Farmer boy, wow, you like. What a story, right Way above his status.
Speaker 1:It sounds like.
Speaker 2:Way above his status.
Speaker 1:Wow, when is this?
Speaker 2:happening, by the way, oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's going to really help the story. It's just two months.
Speaker 2:So he lived from 1772 to 1845. So basically, times of Mozart, beethoven, napoleon. Yeah, the height, the height of Austrian culture. Exactly so this baroness was in love with him and she was rich too, oh he's wild.
Speaker 1:I feel like there needs to be more to that story, but okay.
Speaker 2:Well, and apparently there was some carnal love.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, come on. This is a family show.
Speaker 2:Okay, they were in love. They were in love and she financed his business. He was going to start a business here in Vienna, in the 7th district, which is today the Neuschriftgasse we might come back to that as well at some point and so he opened up his own what do you call it? It was like a butcher, like there was a butcher. It was a butcher, it was a butcher.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Butchery Is that the word for it?
Speaker 1:A butchery, a butchery right, it's a real word. No, it'd be like a, I mean like bakery. We'd go to the butcher.
Speaker 2:I don't think we'd call it a. But the baker works at the bakery Like was the butcher a butcher or butchery?
Speaker 1:I don't know, a butcher would not work at a butchery, although maybe it was called a butchery at the time. I don't think that currently we would call it a butchery. We'd call it like a meat market. Okay, please write it in the comments. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What? Where does a butcher work? What is a butcher work? Long story short, he made this sausage that was really popular. He mixed beef and pork, which was forbidden in Germany but was permitted in Austria Gemischtes.
Speaker 1:Gemischtes. Yeah, it's always a cheaper way to go.
Speaker 2:So he put some other spices in pepper salt, whatever you need for sausage making and this sausage became like the hit at the end of the 18th century, I guess.
Speaker 1:So everybody was taking the BIM down to. Did they have a tram?
Speaker 2:at that point they had like a horse-drawn carriage Horse-drawn carriage.
Speaker 1:Somebody jumped on the horse-drawn carriage to go on the. Noistis, just go to the 7th District to get it Crazy how, a couple hundred years later, we're all jumping on a tram to go down to the 7th District to enjoy some food.
Speaker 2:It's a good restaurant right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Crazy. Some things never change. No, I love it. Some things never change. I just told you a guy from Vienna would be called a Wiener Correct. A guy from Frankfurt would be called a Frankfurter Correct. Also, anything that comes out of Frankfurt, like as in Vienna's sugar, would be Wienerzucker. Also, like, if there's Frankfurt sugar, it would be Frankfurterzucker. Yeah, it makes sense. If there's Frankfurt sausage, they're called Frankfurter. I'm following it. So when there's people in Vienna who are hearing about okay, there's this great new invention, about this sausage, they all said either, they said you have to go visit the Frankfurter in the 7th District like a guy or you have to get some Frankfurt sausage yeah.
Speaker 2:Therefore in Vienna you call this sausage to this day, you call it Frankfurter. But this guy was so famous that even hold on Kaiser Franz Joseph the emperor.
Speaker 1:Wow, the Kaiser Franz Joseph.
Speaker 2:He actually also heard of that and he ordered some Frankfurt to be brought to him to the palace so he didn't have to get on the tram.
Speaker 1:He didn't have to go on the tram to go down to the 7th district. Yeah, again, some things never changed. He's never changed, he called up.
Speaker 2:Fudora and did yes, yes, that was there around. As a matter of fact, the story goes our Frankard guy, the Mr Lana, was invited to the palace to bring the first bunch of sausages and the Kaiser asked him so how do I eat this? And he said your Majesty, you eat it with your hands. Because he was like, should I use the fork? Should I use the spoon? That's a fair question. And he's like, yeah, use your hands.
Speaker 1:So the question what palace was this at? Was it during the summertime? Was he out at Shandrun? You're asking those? Did they set up a grill and he grilled them over some coals and then carried them up the hill? We don't know these things. We don't know these things.
Speaker 2:Lost a history. I would assume it was the Winter Palace, which is fairly close to the 7th district. Yeah, so technically he could have cooked it in the 7th district and it's just a couple like one or two miles down to the palace.
Speaker 1:Franz Joseph didn't know. It's like hey, these are a little little lukewarm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the way they're supposed to be. It's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:It's the way we eat them. Yes, they don't need to be hot.
Speaker 2:Burn your mouth. But from then on the emperor himself would sometimes have like a second breakfast later in the morning and he would order some beer with the sausages. With the fight for the sausages, nothing like beer and sausage at 10 AM.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's nothing the Viennese way. There's other things that don't change like, because if you walk around Vienna, you might see some people having the first beer at 10 o'clock or even earlier. Yeah, that's very true. Perhaps, if you don't believe it, come here and check it out. Yeah, come visit, we'll take you to a virtual stand.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you might have heard the name Franz Schubert. You have heard the name Johann Strauss, and some composers, musicians. They all said Frankfurt sausages were their favorite type of food. And because of all of that, like the emperor, the famous composers, some other celebrities, this creation, this invention, spread all around the world. And where did it come from? For them, it came from the city of Vienna, from Vienna, and so all around the world this sausage is known as the Viennese sausage, the Wiener Wurst, the Wiener. Except for the Viennese, they think it's from Frankfurt. Actually, it's not from Frankfurt, it's actually from here. It's actually from here, but made by an expat, an immigrant Darn immigrants. And you see, like when immigrants come together, some say delicious food gets produced, you get the best out of the best.
Speaker 2:Delicious food is the result in the end, man.
Speaker 1:I guess we got hungry To go down to the virtual stand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kat, did you mention the word Wurstelstand, because You're welcome, because of all these innovations, like more sausages had been invented, they kind of came up with a way of selling those sausages and the Wurstelstand is like a hot dog stand, of course, but more specifically for all the different variations of sausages. I just learned this the other day because the monarchy had lots of I mean, they had to fight a lot of wars and battles, it's true, and what you left with after a war? Soldiers come back injured, no veterans, and so some of them couldn't work anymore. So those were the ones they would be selling those sausages, because it was fairly easy job to do compared to other things they couldn't do anymore.
Speaker 2:Like with the previous professions, they just set up a little stand they set up a little stand somewhere and they just got the sausages and were able to make a living from that. That came about also to the invention of the Frankfurt or the Wiener sausage and other sausages.
Speaker 1:And the street food. I mean beyond just the Wurstelstands, like that's a pretty significant part of like Viennese city life. I feel like like just going down and not having to stand in line in an actual restaurant or go sit down somewhere, but just grabbing something and eating it next to the stand or sitting down in a park or something, and it's kind of grown just beyond just that and you can find the most anywhere.
Speaker 2:The Wüstestands, the Viennese Wüstestands, is really something very how should I say it's a phenomenon? Yeah, because it's phenomenon also culturally, not because of the food in particular, but because of what kind of people you meet there. There's one famous one that's right behind the opera house, yeah, so if you go there at the right time of in the day, like or like after the opera is done, you might find people that we're wearing tuxedos, but you will also find people there like maybe are homeless or people are not very rich, and like the rich and the poor, they all meet at the Wüstestands and sometimes especially if once they had enough beer they have all kind of like philosophical conversations happening, like to talk about life and death and all the important questions that they are to ask in one's existence, kind of like our podcast. Kind of like a podcast. Yeah, because Michael is wearing a tuxedo, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I come in a tuxedo and I'm very wealthy and I look like a homeless person. And we're done. We're gonna keep going, keep, going, keep going.
Speaker 2:This is something that lots of people have also observed when they visit Vienna. I mean, of course there's different classes of people. You know people are rich and poor and anything in between. But if you want to meet someone from a different class of society or society standard, if you want to meet them, probably the Wüstestand is the place to go. You're more likely to run into somebody. Yeah, because even the mayor of Vienna. Sometimes, you know, we sit like I'm just gonna grab a sausage from here, from the Wüstestand.
Speaker 1:Plenty of nice virtual stands near the Rathaus. Yeah, that's the place to go.
Speaker 2:All right. What about question? Oh boy, Do you know anything? I think you know, because you've been here long enough. Have you ever had Birner Wüste?
Speaker 1:Birner Wüste, of course yes.
Speaker 2:Can you describe it? What is Birner Wüste?
Speaker 1:I'd say it's a cheese stuffed sausage with bacon wrapped around it. It's like paradise sausage. The most.
Speaker 2:American thing ever Like wrapped in bacon cheese inside.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's funny, and I also found this out just lately. So we have Frankfurter sausage, we have Vienna Vienna sausage and Berlin, of course, is a city in Switzerland. Okay, and I always thought it was invented maybe in Switzerland. Yeah, it's not, Actually it's not no.
Speaker 1:I always thought it referred to what it did to your stomach Bandit, bandit, bandit. It bands so much after you eat it.
Speaker 2:Nope, maybe not that. No, that's not.
Speaker 1:Why is it named this?
Speaker 2:Usually there's one. There's two reasons why, or how you name things in back in the tradition, it's either the place where it's from or the person who invented it. Okay, and so, for some funny reason in history there was a guy called Erich Berner.
Speaker 1:Erich.
Speaker 2:Berner, and he lived in Zell am See, which is in Salzburg, so it's in Austria. And in the 1950s he thought hey, I'm going to cut up a Frankfurter, a Vienna sausage, fill it with some cheese, wrap some bacon around it, and then I feel like we're skipping a step.
Speaker 1:What's? We have the Kezakreiner. Oh, yeah, the Kezakreiner. So I feel like in the natural progression of these sausages, it should have gone Frankfurter stuff it with cheese and then wrap it in bacon. Is that how it happened? Or do we know anything?
Speaker 2:about the Kezakreiner. Well, the Kezakreiner, as a matter of fact, is a place, a town. Really, where is it Again? Is it Slovenia? Of course, slovenia, slovenia, yeah. But of course, at that time, when it was invented, it was part of Austria, the Austrian Empire, which makes it an Austrian thing again. You can say so, kezakreiner has to do with Kain, but Berner Würstel has to do with this guy, this cook called Berner Jarech Berner, and he just said I need some new kind of sausage. And I'm not sure if he used the Kezakreiner for that or if he just yeah, that's the question to ask, because I'm curious.
Speaker 1:I mean, the natural progression is going from cheese stuff to then like, okay, we're going to wrap this in bacon. Yeah, that's just the ends. That's how things happen. Of all things. Wrap it in bacon is going to be better, right?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, but Kezakreiner.
Speaker 1:Kezakreiner.
Speaker 2:Berner Würstel. You know, Deppetschener, Deppetschener. Yeah, Is that from?
Speaker 1:Deppetschen. Deppetschen is awesome. That's in Hungary.
Speaker 2:It's Deppetschen, but is that?
Speaker 1:different than Deppetschen. Well, that's just the German word for it, man, I was in Deppetschen last summer and I don't think I had a devil's dinner sausage.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they even called it in depth because, like I said, you couldn't have a, you couldn't have a. You know a Wurst like that.
Speaker 1:So maybe it was somebody from Devils and moved to Vienna.
Speaker 2:So that I have not looked up yet.
Speaker 1:Are we becoming a sausage podcast?
Speaker 2:I think we're going to go now wrap some bacon around some schnitzel, because nobody has done that before Bacon wrap.
Speaker 1:I mean that's kind of backwards, but that's kind of like a cordon bleu. It's kind of like a cordon bleu. But what if you wrap a cordon bleu in bacon, then batter it, then deep fry? It Could be onto something.
Speaker 2:I think your stomach's going to burn.
Speaker 1:Man, stay tuned, because we're heading to the kitchen. We are now becoming a cooking podcast, maybe not.
Speaker 2:Well, with that, let's bring the first episode of the Schnitzel and Giggles podcast to a close. Thanks for joining us as we talk about life in the land of Schnitzel.
Speaker 1:And, I guess, sausage. I mean, it's kind of funny. The first episode wasn't actually focused at all on schnitzel, but at least we had the giggles we sure did. Yeah, we did. There, you have it. Thanks for listening. Good bye, bye.
