Food festival in Vienna

Saturday afternoon, my friend Mark and I went to the Genussfestival, a food festival.  It consisted of over 50 booths lined up around the Vienna city park, highlighting local specialties from the various regions of Austria. 

A few differences from the food festivals I've been to in Canada. First, there were free samples at about 75% of all booths.  You could also choose to purchase larger portions to eat on the spot, and also to take home.  Another difference (which seems to be common to all the outdoor festivals/gatherings  I've been to here) is the attention paid to alcohol consumption.  Not only could you purchase wine by the glass at about a third of the booths, it was encouraged: there were several stations whose sole purpose was to lend out glass wine glasses (for a 2.- Euro deposit).  This translated into a whole crowd wandering around the park with a wine glass in their hands, having it periodically refilled at whichever wine booth struck their fancy. 

The white wines were predominant, and every single one was chilled and ready to be enjoyed.  I thought I didn't like wine, but had one glass to taste an Austrian riesling.  Mark assured me he wouldn't let the wine go to waste if I didn't like it!  Turns out I was wrong:  I didn't like 90% of the wines I have had in the past, but that's apparently because I wasn't drinking the right ones (and possibly they weren't chilled enough, there ones were almost ice cold).  I discovered that Austrian rieslings are particularly light and fruity, and just wonderful.  Just to be sure, I had a second glass from another booth.  Yup, still good!

The food itself was quite varied, ranging from salmon to jams. Not a veggie in sight! (This is not abnormal here, it seems). Overall, 4 products dominated the lineup: thinly sliced, dry-cured ham (think prosciutto but better); goat and sheep cheese; green pumpkin products (mainly seeds and oils); and, strangely enough, flavoured vinegars. 

My favourite food of the day was mangalitsa ham.  The mangalitsa, or "woolly" pig is an extreme lard-type breed, meaning it produces high-quality fat and very marbled, juicy and flavorful meat. Mangalitsa fat is more unsaturated than normal pig fat, so it tastes much "lighter", "cleaner" and melts at a lower temperature. The ultra-thin slices quite literally melt in your mouth!

The worst food I saw at the festival was also a dry-cured meat product.  However, in this case it was dry-cured fat.  Think of the white fat sections in a slice of bacon.  Now magnify that into a pure white, hard slab, which is then thinly sliced (of course) and heaped on fresh bread.  Absolutely horrible! 

Between the free entrance and samples, the wine and the lovely weather, it was a great afternoon!