It’s Mozart’s 250th Birthday…

and that’s got me thinking about beef broth. (See? I can turn any topic into food…) But really, it’s true. Because thinking about Mozart gets me to thinking about Salzburg, and thinking about Salzburg makes me remember my visit there a few years ago, and that gets me thinking about a very special broth I had one night….

I do recall that wherever I had broth while in Salzburg, it was delicious. Very unlike broth here, which we tend to use as a base or a container for the good stuff. In Salzburg (and I suppose in Austria in general, though I did not make it out of that fair city), the broth itself is the star and what’s in it mere adornment.

But the broth on that night…I was in Salzburg as the guest of a private foundation, and we “Professors” (I loved how they called us that, no one does that here) were invited to a reception at the private home of one of the foundation’s patrons. And it was at this very lovely, low key and warm dinner that I had the most incredible broth I have ever eaten. It was served as a first course, as I recall, with just a few noodles (or was it dumplings? I really don’t remember.) The broth was absolutely crystal clear and light, yet utterly satisfying all by itself. With flavor unlike any broth I have had before, or since. Other than the company, I honestly don’t remember anything else about the meal itself.

I came home and began making broth, trying to recreate what I had in Salzburg. And though I taught myself to make a nice broth (I even made a veal stock once), I have never achieved anything near in flavor or clarity to that which I had enjoyed in Salzburg. I suspect by its clarity that the broth may have in fact been a consomme (although they called it a broth), and that making it would involve learning to float a raft.

At this point, anyone having the nerve to call their blog a food blog would give you a blow-by-blow of their attempt to make said consomme, complete with photos of ingredients on the counter, pots on the stoves, pre-and post-strained broth, and final product laid on a beautiful table. You’ve got it all imagined right? Good – keep that thought. Because that’s all you’re getting here. (Except of course, the soup can, of which I am quite proud.). Because it is 9 pm on a Friday night, and only because my husband took the kids out to a play at his school that I had the time to write this missive. And now they are home, and my 10 year old wants me to come and lay in bed and read Raul Dahl’s “The Witches” to her. (We are on chapter 5.) So I am taking the lazy blogger’s way out and pointing you to a very nicely done lesson on making consomme here at e gullet, where you will learn tons more than I can ever show you anyway.

But as it turns out, I’ve been invited back to Salzburg again in June. And I am making it my mission while I am there to find out who made that broth, and get them to teach me how to make it myself. If it involves floating a raft, well then so be it. A raft I shall float. And I promise I’ll tell you all about it then, pictures and all.

Happy Birthday, Mozart!