The Great‑Grandfather of the Croissant
The Great‑Grandfather of the Croissant
Kipferl in Austria
I must have eaten thousands of kipferl between the years of 1982 and 2000, and at least a few hundred since then, when I left Austria.
The kipferl, a breakfast staple in Austria and parts of Germany, comes in many shapes and sizes. A brioche kipferl is studded with sugar and a Mohnkipferl is sprinkled with poppy; there are plain ones, ones that come in funny shapes, and indulgent, buttery ones. It is served with nothing but coffee, or with miniature jams from the province of Styria, or with ham and cheese. But the classic is crescent-shaped: the great-grandfather of the far better known French-style croissant.
The French version, its yeast-leavened dough layered with butter, is an adaptation of this plain, Austrian crescent kipferl. The French style was born 1839, when an Austrian artillery officer founded the Boulangerie Viennoise in Paris and brought the style of pastry—Viennoiserie—to the French, where it also became a breakfast staple.
But before this development brought the sickle-shaped chunk of pastry—in wildly varying quality—to the world’s breakfast tables and cafes, the kipferl has a much older pedigree, with versions of it dating to the 13th century.
In Vienna, one of the better-known apocryphal kipferl origin stories is that they were created to celebrate the defeat of the Ottoman Army by Austro-Hungarian and Polish forces in 1683, at the second Siege of Vienna. They say the city’s bakers, keeping their anti-social hours, heard the Ottoman tunneling operation and sounded the alarm. The kipferl, imitating the crescent Ottoman flags, was a form of culinary gloating. (This theory was taken seriously enough by some Syrian rebels that croissants were banned in Aleppo in 2013.) This was not the only culinary legend that came out of the Battle of Vienna: another goes that the first bagel, bread fashioned in the forms of a stirrup, was a gift to the Polish King Sobieski III to commemorate the victory.
When I visit Vienna, the city where I was born but that my parents, both from different continents, adopted in the 1960s, I always seek out the same food items. An extrawurst roll. Trzezniewski’s open-faced Polish sandwiches. Apple-flavored ice cream from Gelato de Salvo. And a Muerbe kipferl for breakfast: a pretty plain option, but with an immensely satisfying texture, solid and bready, like a sweet, doughy pretzel.
The kipferl may be an unremarkable staple in Austria, but I soon realized the high quality of simple raw materials for pastries and baked goods is harder to find in the United Kingdom. Not being a fan of the Full English Breakfast, (or the Full Scottish one for that matter, which is similar but has more fried bread) what was once a plain item, taken for granted at my breakfast table, became a coveted treat.