In Vienna, where culture is spelled with a capital “K” and everyone prides himself on his knowledge of Literatur and Musik, no self-respecting family would be without its own Quartet.
There are young couples who may have to start with a Trio or even a Duet, but they will nor rest until they have their own Quartet. Once having achieved a Quarter, no self-respecting family could ever again be satisfied with less than four instruments. There are some who boast Quintets and even Sextets, but this can only be regarded as snobbery, since few salons can accommodate the sound produced by six energetic strings, let alone a large enough audience to listen to it. Some families only play in their friends' Quartets, and very poor relations only listen, but everyone participates in the musical evenings that are so essential in the Kultnr Stadt Wien.
The trick, of course, is to snare a really first-class First Violin—the Second Violin, the Bratsche, and the Cello will follow. The players may be extremely talented amateurs or famous professionals: a good cellist from the Philharmonie will enjoy playing with the Bratschist from the Musikverein. Under no condition can a family member play unless he or she is an outstanding musician. A talented and attractive First Violin with a presentable wife will be sought after by every hostess in Vienna, and it stands to reason that he will play in Frau Hofrat's Quartet far more readily if the Councillor and Frau Hofrat ask distinguished guests to listen to him and serve a delicious dinner after the music. No one could expect him to play even for the most appreciative audience if he had to eat a tough bird afterwards.
Quartets meet monthly or possibly every other month. The musicians are the same, but the program, the audience, and most important, the dinners, are different. Before arranging her menus, Frau Hofrätin invites the First Violin and his wife to an intimate little dinner. This not only acquaints him with the caliber of her cook and whets his appetite for pleasures to come, but it gives Frau Hofrätin an opportunity for adjusting her menus to his programs. The First Violin thinks in terms of a well-arranged program of chamber music for the winter; Frau Hofrätin thinks in terms of a well-balanced series of menus that tastefully conform with the musical program, and that allow suitable opportunities to produce her specialties. She hopes for an evening of Mozart so that her matchless Salzburger Nockerln will be appreciated, she hints for Dvorak and Smetana so that her Rebrücken in sour Cream can be included. The First Violin suggests Tchaikovsky or possibly Borodin, and Frau Hofrat is dismayed: her beef Stroganoff does not compare with her paprika chicken. But she welcomes bis suggestion of an evening of Béla Bartók: The music may be rather advanced for her audience and annoying to the people in the apartment above, but her spicy Hungarian gulyàs will compensate for everything.
She excels in fish pudding and is delighted when Herr Hofrat, who is of course well up on Musik and glad of an opportunity to show the First Violin that he isn't dealing with a musical imbecile, suggests Grieg. The First Violin, who does not know about the fish pudding, which Frau Hofrat serves with cucumber salad, is not enthusiastic. He loves his Haydn and would also like the post-humous Schubert piece in D. This reference depresses the Hofrätin, who likes to think of the living…. Hindemith, whom she adores, springs to her mind. How about Quartet Number 3, Opus 22? The wife of the First Violin abruptly changes the subject to César Franck. Fortunately they are eating a really first-class carp and both the First Violin and his wife feel that musical concessions can be made where the table leaves no room for criticism. Frau Hofrätin is inspired to address the First Violin as “Meister,” and immediately gets her way with Hindemith, for which she gracefully concedes him César Franck, and wonders desperately where she can lay her hands on a large and well-aged Belgian hare.
Quail follow the carp, and the little dinner party is a great success. The Brahms evening is planned in greatest musical-gastronomical harmony. Although Brahms wisely came to live in Vienna, he was born in Hamburg, so the first course could be a perfect Krabssalat, and the rest of the dinner completely Viennese. It might even include some of Brahms's favorite dishes. The Italian evenings of Boccherini, Paganini, and Scarlatti arrange themselves smoothly around a pollo alla romana and dolce di castagne. There is no problem about Debussy and Ravel, because Herr Hofrat has given the Hofrätin a first edition of Escoffier that she will consult. This leaves only the spring evenings to plan and one or two programs to arrange in case the Quartet should become a Trio through an unforeseen cancellation—or a Quintet because of an eminent musical guest. The final planning is done over black coffee, Bruckner is included for Vienna's sake, Beethoven, and Hugo Wolf. A Bach trio will provide for any emergency, and if there should be a second mishap Frau Hofrat has the beautiful Chopin trio and her cauliflower polonaise up her sleeve. The Brahms. Beethoven, and Mendelssohn quintets will be held in reserve for visiting musicians. If a string should fail them at the last moment, Schumann's Quartet in E flat for piano and strings can be substituted, with Herr Hofrat at the piano.
Now all is settled—only the Russians are left. They agree to start the next Season with the new Prokofiev and some Shostakovich — that leaves the whole summer free to practice kulich and save for Kaviar.
The Meister goes home in mellow mind to test the timing. He will send in a sort of timetable for Frau Hofrätin's cook to use, so that she can begin to serve each dinner at just the right moment after the applause. The Strings meet to run over their parts and Frau Hofrätin sends out her invitations. Politeness demands punctuality and her guests arrive promptly. It would be uncultivated to keep musicians waiting and far too uncomfortable in the Vorzimmer to sit out the first number there.
Musik comes first — Kultur requires Musik on an empty stomach. The Quartet starts at six. There is great concentration; nods and little indications from the guests show that they know every note. The daughter of the house follows breathlessly in her Partitur. As the Musik continues, with little Pausen full of “ohs” and “ahs” and discreet applause, the interest of the guests and possibly even of the musicians seems to turn to thoughts of dinner, of which they may become slightly aware as a faint aroma drifts through the strains of the last number.
The musicians are lauded with a glass of Sherry, and then to dinner: the First Violin on Frau Hofrätin's right, the wife of the First Violin next to Herr Hofrat. The guests and musicians are uplifted by musical conversation and anecdotes, and by a dinner calculated to hold fast the First Violin, so that he will not be lured to Frau Sektionchef's Quartet next year.
There follow a group of recipes, international in flavor, any of which might compose part of the gastronomic repertoire on Quartet evenings.
Gulyàssuppe (Hungarian Goulash Soup)
In a kettle or Dutch oven, brown 1 onion, minced, in I tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon bacon fat. Stir in 2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika and add 3 pounds brisket of beef, cut in medium chunks, and ¼ pound calf's liver. Brown the meat on all sides and dust it with a little flour. Add 1 cup white wine and salt to taste. Cover the pan and cook the meat gently for about 1 hour. Remove the liver, mince it, and return it to the kettle with 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped. Gxk the gulyàssuppe for an hour or so longer, until the meat is tender. Boil 1 pound potatoes, peeled and quartered, in salted water to cover until they are barely tender. Add the potatoes to the gulyàs suppe with enough of the cooking water to make a medium-thick soup. Add more paprika and salt to taste and cook all together for a few minutes longer.
Serve meat and soup in soup plates and pass separately, as a garnish for the soup, Spätzle dressed with melted butter.
Spätzle
Mix together well 2 ¼ cups flour, 1 egg, beaten, 2/3 cup water, and ½ teaspoon salt. Use a little less water if the egg is large, to make a soft dough that will not flow and is stiff enough so that it will not run off a spoon. Scoop up a generous amount of the dough with a wooden spoon. With a knife cut off small slices of the dough and drop them directly from the spoon into a large kettle of boiling salted water. The Spätzle will rise to the surface when they arc cooked. Drain them well in a colander and transfer them to a deep heated serving dish. Four ¼ cup melted butter over them and, if desired, stir in ¼ cup warmed sour cream. Shake the Spätzle well and serve hot.
Paprikabübnchen {Squab Chickens with Paprika)
Wash, dry, and sprinkle with salt 6 plump squab chickens or Rock Cornish game hens. Render 6 slices bacon, diced, in a large skillet or casserole, add 1 onion, grated, and stir in 2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika. Heat the fat to sizzling again and in it sauté the birds, turning them frequently, until the fat is absorbed and the birds arc lightly browned. Add ½ cup chicken stock, cover the pan, and simmer the birds for about 25 minutes. Turn them several times with two spoons, being careful not to pierce the skins. Add more hot chicken stock if necessary. Crush the birds‧ livers, add them to the sauce, cover the skillet, and steam all for 10 minutes longer. The birds should be cooked for 35 to 45 minutes in all. depending on their size. Stir in 5/4 cup sour cream—more, if more sauce is desired—and heat the sauce thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning with paprika and salt to taste. Serve at once with Spätzle dressed with butter and sour cream.
Fish Pudding
Reserve the skin and trimmings of 3 pounds halibut, sole, or flounder—use a combination of any two—and put the fileted fish twice through the finest blade of the food chopper. Pour off any juices. Put the fish again through the food chopper with 1 cup butter.
Combine ¼ cup flout, 4 egg yolks, 2 teaspoons salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and ½ teaspoon each of finely chopped chervil and dill With 2/3 cup heavy cream. Add the cream mixture to the ground fish and work the mixture until it is smooth. Fold in ¾ cup cream, whipped stiff, and 4 egg whites, beaten stiff.
Turn the pudding into a 3-quart fluted tube mold, generously buttered and lightly dusted with fine dry bread crumbs. Cover the mold securely and put it on a rack in a kettle of hot water that reaches halfway up the sides of the mold. Cover the kettle and steam the pudding for 1 ½ hours, adding more hot water as necessary. Unmold the pudding on a large warm serving platter and garnish the platter with small boiled potato balls, rolled in melted butter and in finely chopped parsley. Pass lobster truffle sauce separately and serve with a salad of diced cucumbers dressed with French dressing or sour cream.
Hummer Sosse (Lobster Truffle Sauce)
In a saucepan combine the skin and trimmings reserved from the fish used in the fish pudding with 2 cups water, I small onion, 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, half a bay leaf, 2 cloves, 4 pepper corns, and ½ teaspoon salt and simmer this stock for ½ hour. Strain the fish stock and reduce it over high heat to ½ cup.
Sauté 1 cup cooked lobster meat, diced, in 1 tablespoon butter. Add 1 tablespoon finely chopped truffle and keep the mixture warm. In the top of a double boiler over hot but not boiling water beat 4 egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of the fish stock. Cut 1 cup butter into 6 pieces. With a wire whisk, stir one piece of butter at a time into the yolks. Do not add another piece until the preceding piece has been thoroughly incorporated. As the sauce thickens, add the rest of the ½ cup fish stock to make a thick sauce. Whisk the sauce well and add a dash of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. If the sauce should separate, beat in quickly I tablespoon boiling water and stir to restore the emulsion. Stir in the warm lobster and truffles. If the sauce is not to be served at once, it may be kept warm by setting the top of the double boiler in a bowl of tepid water.
Cauliflower Polonaise
Simmer a very large cauliflower in boiling salted water to cover for about 15 minutes, or until it is just barely tender. Do not overcook. Drain it well and arrange it in a high-sided oven-proof dish just large enough to hold it. Scatter over the top of the cauliflower ½ pound cooked ham, cut in fine julienne. Sprinkle it with 2 teaspoons lemon juice, cover the dish with a plate, and keep it hot in the oven. Crush 6 Holland rusks with a rolling pin and brown the crumbs in ¼ pound butter. Watch carefully, as they brown quickly. Stir into the crumbs the white of 1 hard-cooked egg, forced through a ricer, and ¼ cup parsley, chopped. Spread this mixture over the ham-covered cauliflower and gently pour over it ¼ cup hot butter that has been browned in a skillet. Rice the yolk of a hard-cooked egg and sprinkle it and the grated rind of 1 lemon over the cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.
Krebssalat (Crayfish Salad)
Blanch a medium celery root in boiling water for a minute and peel it. Boil the root in salted water to cover for ½ hour or more, until it is just tender. Cut the root into cubes and marinate the cubes for ½ hour in a mild vinaigrette sauce (October, 1957). Drain and chill them.
In a kettle combine 3 cups water, 1 cup white wine, 1 onion, sliced, I stalk of celery, 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, a sprig of thyme, ½ teaspoon pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt. Simmer this court-bouillon for 30 minutes. Wash 1 pound crayfish well and remove the intestinal vein at the tail. Boil the crayfish in the court-bouillon for about 20 minutes. Remove the meat from the tails and pour ¼ cup tarragon vinegar over it, tossing the warm meat so that it will absorb the vinegar. Chill the crayfish meat.
Bear together 1 uncooked egg yolk and the yolks of 2 hard-cooked eggs. Add I ½ tablespoons tarragon vinegar, I teaspoon each of sugar and salt, ½ teaspoon each of Dijon mustard and white pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper and beat well. Beat in ¼ tup olive oil, drop by drop, and 1 egg yolk. Slowly beat in ¾ cup salad oil, in a steady stream. Add I ½ teaspoons tomato ketchup and 1 teaspoon each of minced fresh chervil, tarragon, and dill. Add more salt and pepper to taste and chill the sauce.
Combine the crayfish meat and celery root and add 1 ½ cups cubed melon, using cantaloupe or another firm fleshed melon. Arrange the salad on lettuce leaves on individual serving plates. Fold ½ cup cream, stiffly whipped, into the sauce and pour about ¼ cup dressing over each portion.
Shrimp may be substituted for the crayfish. Shell and devein 1 pound shrimp and cook them in boiling salted water with ¼ teaspoon caraway seeds for about 4 minutes. Drain them, cut them in half, shake them in tarragon vinegar, and chill.
Salzburger Nockerln
Beat 4 egg yolks light and creamy and bear in ¼ cup flour. Beat 8 egg whiles very stiff and add ¾ cup vanilla-flavored powdered sugar, a little at a time. (To make the vanilla sugar, bury a vanilla bean in a jar of very finely powdered sugar for several days.) The success of Nockerln depends on the stiffness of the egg whites; be sure not to underbeat. Heat 3 tablespoons butter in an 8-inch skillet until it bubbles. Tilt and roll the pan to coat the sides with butter. Quickly fold the egg whites and yolks together and turn the mixture into the pan. Divide it in sixths with a spatula and sauté it for a minute or two. only long enough to color the underside lightly. Place the pan in a slow oven (250° F.) and bake the Nockesln until the top is golden, about 10 minutes. Dust with more vanilla sugar and serve at once.
Dolce di Castagne (Chestnut Confection)
Cut a cross on the flat side of 2 pounds chestnuts, heat them in a very slow oven (250° F.) for 10 minutes, and remove the shells at once. Boil the chestnuts 10 minutes in salted water to cover and remove the skins. Combine 1 cup milk, ½ cup water, and ¼ cup sugar and in it cook the peeled nuts, covered, for 20 minutes longer, until they are lender. The nuts may be placed on a low trivet to prevent their sticking to the pan. Put the hot chestnuts through a food chopper at once.
Gradually stir into the chestnut purée a mixture of 2/3 cup cream, ½ cup powdered sugar, and 1/3 cup kirsch or cherry brandy. Add ¼ cup ground blanched almonds and whip the paste. It should be very thick. The mealiness of chestnuts varies; add a little more kirsch and cream if necessary. Chill the paste and whip it again.
Spread the paste in a square ½ inch thick on buttered brown paper and chill thoroughly on a baking sheet in the refrigerator. Spread the paste with 2/3 cup orange marmalade and chill it again. Lift one edge of the brown paper and with a knife, loosen the paste from the paper and roll up the sheet of paste as you would a jelly roll, smoothing it with the knife as you roll it. Smooth the finished roll and chill it. Spread the roll with marmalade and cover all except the two ends with ½ cup shaved blanched almonds. Arrange the dolce on a chilled serving platter and keep it cold. At serving time, pipe around the roll with a pastry tube 1 cup heavy cream whipped with ¼ cup powdered sugar. Dot the cream with large black or brandied cherries.
The dolce di castagne may also be made in a loaf mold lined with buttered paper. Press a layer of chestnut paste into the mold, spread it with marmalade, add another layer of paste, spread with marmalade, and top with a final layer of paste. Pack each layer firmly and chill it before proceeding. Unmold the confection carefully, smooth it with a knife, spread it with marmalade. sprinkle with shaved blanched almonds, and garnish with whipped cream and cherries.