Tasting Freedom in the Form of an Airport Cold Cut
Tasting Freedom in the Form of an Airport Cold Cut
Wurstsemmel at the Vienna Airport
For a little while there, Austria–one of Europe’s most reliably boring countries–got interesting.
The Presidential race–between Norbert Hofer, the far-right Freedom Party’s gun-toting candidate, and ex-Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen–went down to the wire, with Hofer ahead by 4% on election night, pre-postal vote count. As these final, decisive votes were tallied in fits and starts the following day, Austria’s media sites crashed. The live announcement was delayed, so the state media ran old episodes of a Bavarian soap opera instead. Reading my Twitter feed was like a nightmarish election-day version of Schrodinger’s Cat—a universe in which both candidates had won, and both had lost. Hofer wins!! VAN DER BELLEN IST PRESIDENT! Lies! Hofer still ahead by 60,000! Americans made comparisons to Bush-Gore 2000. And through it all, the Austrian media couldn’t decide on a hashtag.
Of course, when I landed at Vienna airport four days later, Van Der Bellen had prevailed, but only by a sliver of 31,000 votes (0.6%). I didn’t cast one of those votes. I’m not an Austrian citizen. Yet, my affection for Wurstsemmel, Austria’s beloved everyman sandwich, means that I will always have some Vienna blood.
Eating a Wurstsemmel is my ritual when I return to Austria. Vienna airport’s arrivals hall boasts a more-than-decent supermarket with a meat and cheese counter. So I get a Wurstsemmel, and unwrap the wax paper at a stand-up table under the arrivals board. I finish it before I even leave the airport.
It’s simple. Just a semmel (Kaiser roll), a round roll of sturdy white bread (think baguette, not Wonder) and a few thin slices of Extrawurst, which is exactly as suspect as it sounds. Extrawurst, Austria’s most popular lunchmeat, is a cold cut made of the combined greasy forces of beef, pork, and bacon fat, plus garlic and spices. It’s hot-dog-style scraps, and the color of a cartoon piglet. But I love it anyway. And that’s it: just meat and bread, and sometimes a little gherkin if you’re feeling fancy. Any more would ruin the perfect marriage of the soft, salty wurst and the hard crisp of the roll.
Austrians take their national snack very seriously. Kommissar Rex, a cop-and-dog TV series set in Vienna that became an international hit (yes, really), has a running gag involving the clever Alsatian, Rex, stealing the hapless sidekick’s Wurstsemmel. In 2013, McDonald’s was forced to pull an ad campaign comparing a Wurstsemmel unfavorably to its Ranchburger (which at the time both cost just one Euro) after outraged Austrians summoned a social media shitstorm.
So it’s only fitting that a few years back, when Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache (campaign slogan: Vienna must not become Istanbul!) showed up at an exclusive Christmas party, a disgruntled citizen hurled a Wurstsemmel at him. It didn’t end well; witnesses said Strache’s bodyguard got twitchy and gave the perpetrator, a 40-year old ex-banker, a black eye. (The worst part? He missed!). Strache beefed up his security afterwards.
As I tore into my Wurstsemmel under the airport arrivals board, I realized that without those 31,000 votes, it might have tasted a little different. That day might yet come. But for now, if Austrians keep throwing their Wurstsemmels at Hofer, we might have a few more years of freedom from the Freedom Party.