{"id":9967,"date":"2015-01-21T02:33:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=9967"},"modified":"2015-01-21T03:30:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T11:30:20","slug":"k-kipferl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/k-kipferl\/","title":{"rendered":"K is for Kipferl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kipferl\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Austrians like to claim they invented (fill in the blank) when it comes to food. Thing is, they once had such an extensive empire that okay, okay, the well known (fill in the blank) was probably conceived on their turf while they had that turf. Austrians claim the kipferl, the progenitor of the croissant, as their own, though in this case, if you accept that Vienna is the kipferl’s home, geography favors the Austrians.<\/p>\n

In 1683, the city of Vienna was under siege by the Ottoman Empire. When the siege was broken and Holy Roman Empire victorious, the bakers of Vienna cranked out crescent shaped goodies — kipferl. The shape is a reference to the crescent moon that marked the enemy’s flags, or so the story goes. Legends further suggest that Austrian princess Marie Antoinette brought the croissant\/crescent\/kipferl with her to France when she married Louis XVI. The French have a similar battle story from 732, their croissant referred to the crescent on the flags of Umayyad soldiers at the Battle of Tours.\u00a0 I don’t know how there can be so much debate when you are busy stuffing the subject of said debate into your mouth, but to the bakers of history, whoever you are, I say danke, merci, thank you.<\/p>\n

Kipferl refers to the shape of the baked good more than the ingredients, though if you just ask for a kipferl, you’ll get a white crescent shaped roll that might have raisins in it, or maybe not. There are vanillekipferl, which are a nutty cookie coated in powdered sugar. The kipfel pictured here is a nusskipferl. It’s made with a grainy spelt flour pastry and filled with a butter, nut, and sugar paste that tastes of hazelnuts. It’s a cousin to the Ashkenazi Jewish rugelach which, roughly translated from Yiddish, means “little crescent.”<\/p>\n

By the way, Marie Antoinette has been cleared of saying “Let them eat cake.” The quote was falsely attributed to a handful of royalty, including another Marie, Marie-Therese of Spain. It was the philosopher Jean Jaques Rousseau who made up the phrase and he never accused Marie Antoinette of saying it. Plus, he said brioche, not gateau, or cake, so it’s a bad translation, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austrians like to claim they invented (fill in the blank) when it comes to food. Thing is, they once had such an extensive empire that okay, okay, the well known (fill in the blank) was probably conceived on their turf while they had that turf. Austrians claim the kipferl, the progenitor of the croissant, as … <\/p>\n


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