In England, differences of speech may distinguish one social class from another (see, for example, My Fair Lady—if you possibly can!) and in America fine social lines are drawn by the model and the horsepower of the car one drives. But in Vienna, where so much depends on food, the classes are divided according to what they eat, how they eat it, and what they call it.
The workingman takes time out for Vesper and eats his Vesperbrot, his light afternoon meal, while both Herr Müller, the good burgher, and the highborn Herr Baron, who dresses like his gamekeeper and speaks as much like a cab driver as he can, enjoy their Janse. To both the burgher and the baron, die Jausenstunde is that comfortable, beloved time that comes three hours after the midday meal and three hours before dinner or supper.
The street lights are just coming on, the children are home, and a little warm refreshment will draw the family and its various activities together again after the day's separation. The Jause is not a formal, elaborately arranged function in the living room, and requires neither teacart nor cake stand. It is an intimate family gathering around a brightly lighted and properly set dining-room table, a gathering whose Gemütlichkeit is enjoyed by every Herr and Fran Müller in Vienna.
Frau Müller draws the curtains and covers the canary's cage. A vibrant red glows from the open door of the old porcelain stove. Then, with Frau Müller's enormous Kugelbupf in the center of the table, the dining room becomes the most comfortable and attractive room in the house.
The family comes to the Jausentisch supplied with conversation and with the evening's occupation. The children bring their homework and the checkerboard. Frau Müller and her oldest daughters bring their Handarbeit and embroider next year's birthday and Christmas presents while they talk. In the intervals of correcting his sons' Latin and algebra copybooks, Herr Müller rolls cigarettes with his little machine. And everyone drinks tea and eats slices of the Bischofs-brot or Striezel which Anna bakes each Friday.
The same kinds of cake and coffee bread are baked almost every Friday of the year, but they never become monotonous, because they vary with the season and the occasion. With Easter and Pfingsten, or Whitsuntide, Christmas and Sylvester to consider, as well as the saints' days and birthdays of each member of the family, the program of yeast cakes and plain cakes is an ever-changing one. Besides, Frau Müller remembers a lime when the baking calendar Included the Emperor's birthday and his favorite recipes, and she still keeps them in her schedule.
For a holiday, the large Stolle is far more festively filled and decorated, naturnlich, than it is in a Lenten week. The plain two-egg Kugelbupf may do for a hot week in midsummer, but for Mädi's birthday it is improved with four more eggs, candied fruit, slivered almonds, and Zucker Glasur. For little Peter's first week in school, the Kgelbupf may get a dark hood of chocolate icing. On Herr Müller's Namenstag the Sebuecken are coated with sugar and filled with raisins, and a special nut filling in the Reindling marks a visit from Fran Midler's mother. All this docs not eliminate the baking of the special birthday Torten, of course; it only illustrates the ambiance of the week as Anna and Frau Müller sentimentally record in the kitchen the family feists and anniversaries.
On Thursday evening, Frau Müller unlocks her supply closet and metes out the raisins, almonds, spices, and sugar. These Colonial Waren and the other items that come from the colonies— usually the British colonies—are high-ly prized in Vienna. One buys them at the Colonial Waren Handlung, which also sells tea, coffee, candied orange rind, vanilla beans, and chocolate. Anna blanches and slivers the almonds, rolls the bread crumbs, and washes the butter that very evening. Before ;he goes to bed, she seals the kitchen, practically hermetically, and stokes the stove. Anna not only knows that all ingredients for baking with yeast must be warm, she believes implicitly that the cook and the kitchen must be warm as well.
On Friday the house is filled with the wonderful smells) of baking, and the last braided loaf or plain Kuchen is timed to come from the oven to the Jausentiscb at just the proper moment, so that it may be eaten while it is still warm.
Sometimes Frau Müller's Anna makes Nussbros or a Zopf, sometimes Auisbrot. And sometimes she makes Sandtorte. Sandtorte is exactly what its name implies— it is as hard te swallow as a mouthful of sand flavored with rum. But to the Viennese, the Sandtorse is a costalgic reminder of childhood, of the Kinderjausen when Mother or Fräulein would serve a piece of Sandtorte and a mug of warm milk or cocoa to drink with it. It is still traditional for retired governesses and pensioned nursemaids to bring a Sandtorte when they stop in to Jause with their middle-aged former charges. Many a stern head of the house who has not eaten sweets for years will happily munch Sandtorste with his old Fräulein while they recall old times together.
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