Austrian and Belgian cuisine
A comparison of culinary delights at the highest level
Belgium and Austria are both known for their delicious cuisine and passion for food. In recent years, media have frequently informed about food scandals and concern has raised about the quality of our food. These two countries share the love for their particular specialties, but how important is the quality of their meals for them? Let me guide you on a detailed insight in Belgian and Austrian cuisine.
The Austrian cuisine
The Austrian cuisine is full of hearty flavoured and sweet dishes. The gastronomic culture is a mixture of the produce, textures and flavours of Central Europe, the long lasting Habsburger Empire has led to this influence. According to the Austrian cook, Mr. Horst Gleiss, there is a distinctive bread-and soup-eating culture in Austria. No matter if a creamy soup or a clear soup with solid ingredients, which differs by region, the Austrian like to eat a delicious soup to warm themselves.
The variety of different breads plays a significant role in the Heurigen, a typical Austrian kind of restaurant. It can be served with various kinds of spread, chees or sliced cold meat. Trough the optimal climate for livestock breeding, Austria is a nation of beef and poultry eaters. All the most famous specialities include meat, for example Wiener Schnitzel, Goulasch and Schweinsbraten. Another passion of the Austrian are sweet dishes. There is a wide variety in the Austrian food culture: Sachertorte, Apfelstrudel, apricot dumplings or Palatschinken, to name a few.
The Belgian cuisine
Belgium has one of the highest densities of Michelin starred restaurants in Europe. The diversity of the different language regions also reflects on their cuisine. The Flemish-Dutch solidness and the French refinement reveal together the Belgian cuisine. Without doubt, fries are the best known speciality from Belgium, whether they are served with different sauces or as a side dish to a steak or mussels.
The Belgians adore their delicious beer, but not only to drink. They also use it to prepare their meals, for example for the Lapin á la Trappiste à prûnes (rabbit with plum in beer sauce) or Flemish Carbonades. Waterzooi with codfish is another popular meal, which is a kind of a fish soup with vegetables. Especially in the regions near the sea is fish an essential ingredient. The Belgian cook, Sandra Meirlevede, mentioned that vegteables like chicory, sprouts and pickles are often used in the Belgian cuisine. Moreover, the Belgians love their sweet dishes, like Waffles, Flemish apple tarte, Smoutebollen or Pannenkoekje. Prepared with world known Belgian chocolate there exist an enormous range of Pralines.
Comparing the traditional meals of both nations you will notice one big similarity: they both adore sweets. For breakfast, lunch, as a snack between or as a dessert — a sweet course always brings a smile on the face of every Belgian and Austrian. In the Austrian cuisine meat, especially pork, plays a key role. Contrary to this fish is more important for the Belgian, this is attributed to their geographical location near the sea. Altough pork and beef are also often on the menu.
Food quality
In the last summer egg products contaminated by insecticide harmful to human health were spread in over 15 EU states. According to the article on theguardian.com, Belgium and Austria were both affected by the fipronil egg-scandal. Through such a food scandal, the quality of the food gets into public concern. Most of the time we forget how important it is what we are eating, and which quality the ingredients have.
To compare the quality of the food from Belgium and Austria, I asked an Austrian cook, Horst Gleiss and a Belgian cook Sandra Meirlevede, for advice. A big part of the food legislation is harmonised at EU level and so the standards for food are similar in Austria and Belgium. Especially for the agri-food sector there are strict production requirements, for example there are regulations to improve the communication between farmers, buyers and consumer.
The most important parts of the EU food legislation, according to Mr. Gleiss are: general information, obliged marking of calories and nutritional value data, marking of allergen, food imitations, obligatory details about the origin of meat and warning labels for food containing caffeine.
Even if the main issuesare regulated by the EU, there aa lot of national laws regarding food for manufacture and marketing of certain categories. In Austria the responsible arrangement is called “Lebensmittelgesetz” in Belgium “Royal Arrêté”. Additionally, there are Food Safety Agencies. For example, the EFSA — European Food Safety Authority, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) in Austria and the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) in Belgium.
The Austrian cook, Horst Gleiss, also mentioned the “AMA-Gütersiegel” as an officially approved quality mark. It guarantees a high quality of food with a clear certificated origin. In Belgium there are smaller quality labels, for instance “Made in Ostbelgien”. This is an organisation of the German-speaking-community which stands for a high quality and regional products.
There is not an enormous difference of the food standards, both countries try hard to achieve high quality. Nevertheles, a Belgian cook Sandra Meirlevede and a Austrian cook Horst Gleiss cook share the opinion, for a lot of consumers a low price is more important than a high quality, specially for meat products. The Belgian cook said, that fresh, qualitative and healthy porducts are more expensive than some fast food products and people should become more aware of this fact and accept it.
In the last years a healthy diet has become more and more important for a part of the population. Maybe this trend might also have a positive impact on the thriftiness and on people willing to spend more money for a better quality.
Both nationalities deserve their reputation of gourmet-nations. It´s a pleasure to try the wide variety of national specialities in Austria and Belgium and enjoy the culinary delights on anelevated level of quality.
References:
- Interview with an Austrian cook Horst Gleiss
- Interview with an Belgian cook Sandra Meirlevede
- theguardian.com
- EUR-Lex Acess to European Union Law (eur-lex.europa.eu)
- FAVV (favv-afsca.be)
- AGES (www.ages.at)
