<<would love to have a bagel, but they're not exactly easy to find in a country like Austria.... Gee, I wonder why that is?>>
AHA!!! Finally a technical question I can answer!!! :0)
The reason you can't get a bagel in Austria is not, as you might have been implying, Bruce, because there are no Jews around. It's because the Jews that are (or were) there are hoity-toity German Jews, who never ate bagels in the first place. Bagels--like, say, pastrami--were the food of the low-class ost-Juden (such as yours truly and most American Jews today), who came from parts east (galicia, the baltics, the Pale of Russia, etc. etc.). Professor tekgirl and I spent a summer in Vienna a few years ago when she was doing research, and I scoured the whole *&#@! city several times and could never find a decent bagel--even in the Jewish food stores and restaurants!
bubbleboy/Ares@butascompensation,Viennesecoffeeisthebestever.com
PS The notion of Merlin eating a bagel is hilarious. A more non-Jewish person I can't imagine, except perhaps Franq or Lindy... :0)
PPS another Viennese food story: when I went to a Chinese restaurant there [NB: this was before I learned that all European Chinese is inedible], I was miffed at not getting a fortune cookie at the end of the meal. So I asked the waitress for one, and she looked at me blankly. After a while I realized, embarrassingly, that fortune cookies are apparently an American tradition, not a Chinese one... :0) |
