Harald Schmidt: Searching for culinary traces in Austria

Created: 02/07/2022Updated: 02/07/2022 10:24 am

By: Michael Schleicher

Harald Schmidt tastes it: Here apple strudel on the shore of Lake Traunsee.

© Christopher Mavrič/Brandstätter Verlag

Harald Schmidt appreciates Thomas Bernhard.

Now the ex-late-night star and actor has published the book "The province celebrates its triumphs in the Frittatensuppe", a culinary search for traces through Austria in Bernhard's footsteps.

Ah, the Zittel, the good one.

In Thomas Bernhard's "Heldenplatz" (1988) he carries in one soup tureen after the other - as if all was right with the world.

But with the Schusters, everything, really everything, has long been out of joint.

And when it says at one point in Falk Richter's powerful production of the piece at the Munich Kammerspiele: "The Zittel must have made us a hot soup", Bernhard (1931-1989) only fills in a pause in his characters' conversation at first glance.

Harald Schmidt: On the "Traumschiff" he plays Oskar Schifferle

Food and drink are important in the writing of this great playwright, entertaining berserker and terrifyingly accurate time analyst.

Harald Schmidt knows that too.

Germany's retired king of the Late Night, actor and performer of Oskar Schifferle on the ZDF "Traumschiff" is the publisher of a book that Bernhard and his work now encounters at the table in the tavern.

“The province celebrates its triumphs in the pancake soup” is the subtitle “A culinary search for traces” and has just been published

.

The book is an excellent mix of literary and theater history, biographical and anecdotal, recipes and road movies.

"I publish, but of course people who can do that wrote," says Harald Schmidt.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Of course, the 64-year-old had Bernhard's favourites, he met Bernhard's half-brother and rode a lap on the writer's bike, which he always got on when he didn't want to rush to the inns by car.

Harald Schmidt meets Claus Peymann

“I was out and about in Upper Austria for three days and ate lunch up to four times so that nice photos could be taken in the inns where Thomas Bernhard liked to have lunch,” reveals Schmidt.

For the book, however, he also had an extensive, enlightening and entertaining conversation with Claus Peymann about Bernhard - admittedly: with Chouxteigkrapfen in a supporting role.

The director and ex-director, now 84, did a lot to ensure that the playwright was played, especially during his time as director of the Vienna Burgtheater from 1986 to 1999.

Harald Schmidt meets Claus Peymann to talk about Thomas Bernhard.

© Christopher Mavrič/Brandstätter Verlag

This printed pancake soup is finely seasoned.

Margarete Affenzeller, for example, analyzes the role of food in Bernhard's work: "It is impossible to prepare, serve and taste food so cautiously that the sore point of a family, a relationship, a suppressed history would not be revealed," she knows.

Six recipes for Bernhard's favorite dishes

Alexander Rabl then looks even deeper into the pots and writes about the origin and meaning of the dishes that are the subject of the plays. Katharina Seiser not only provides a great glossary, but also approaches the "nature of the inn" in a way that is worth reading, while star chef Vincent Klink meanders wonderfully aimlessly through Vienna's coffee house culture. Finally, there are Hedi Klinger's contributions. She cooked in her inn in Gaspoltshofen (foreigners probably only know the town from the "Theatermacher") when it was Bernhard's favorite place. The volume closes with six recipes of his favorite dishes – from pancake soup to boiled beef to apple strudel. "We go into books as we do into inns: hungry, thirsty," writes Bernhard in "Ritter, Dene, Voss". This one makes you want to cook – and the theatre. canvas.