Punschknopfen

After class one day, I took the tram back toward Kandlgasse and wandered into the Tullnerfelder Bäckerei, an unimposing building with a small fabric awning decorated in vertical pink and white stripes, vaguely evoking the innocent joy of a child walking into a billowing circus tent. Inside, a smiling elderly woman greets me with the regional “Grüß Gott” and a “bitte” as she patiently waits for me to order (this patience seemingly a rarity in the Viennese service industry). For a moment I stare through glass display at the array of  beautiful pastries. A pink cube caught my eye. Gesturing towards the mysterious confection, I asked what it was. When she replied with "Punschknopfen," I pulled out a piece of paper and asked her, in German, to spell it for me, so I could go back to the dorm and look it up. The term translates to "punch button" in English, due to its shape and liberal use of rum. I decided to Google the word and found out that the more common name is Punschkrapferl, but I like Punschknopfen more. According to the Wikipedia page, the origin is unknown and like many other Viennese foodstuffs are steeped in myths, being either attributed to Ottoman armies during the Second Turkish Siege or to a confectioner at the imperial court. An article on Wien International's website suggests that Punschknopfen were created as a way of dealing with leftover or stale cakes, by soaking them in rum and covering icing to return the cake's lost vitality. According to an article on Deutsche Welle's website, the humble Punschknopfen is also purportedly a term for a politician with a socialist (pink) facade but supposedly Nazi (brown) machinations, an issue in Austrian politics in the postwar period.

When I took home that strange and unassuming pastry, I certainly wasn't expecting it to carry such cultural significance. I guess that's just one of the exciting things about immersing yourself in a new culture.