Austrian delight
I had a most embarrassing experience in England almost two decades ago when I was 16. I had only had two years of learning English at school and we never learned anything about English food. I was staying in England as an au pair and my host family asked me what my favourite Austrian dish was. I told them it was 'omelette with marmalade' so they made it for me. I ate it with the utmost disdain but never told them what I had really meant. Maybe they still think this is the Austrian way! Can you guess what it was I had been craving for? Well, the German word Marmelade means jam or marmalade and in Austria we say Omelette for pancake. So I ended up having a marmalade omelette when all I wanted was a pancake with jam!
Sent by: Eva
Comments
In my area of Austria, we call pancakes actually Palatschinken. Well, Schinken means ham, so there's something confusing.
That's funny! I'm from Austria, and having done an exchange program in the US, I can definitely see how mixing up the Austrian 'Omelette' with the American 'omelette' could be a big problem!
In my family, we actually eat a dish similar to that ... A rice omelette with certain types of jam can be delicious.
As far as I know the word Palatschinken used in certain places of Austria has nothing to do with Schinken, rather with the Hungarian word palacsinta (where 'cs' is pronounced similar to the German 'tsch'), meaning actually the same.
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