A roll by any other name would taste so sweet
When, as a Franciscan University student, you hear other students speak of their experience at the University's Austria campus (in Gaming, Niederösterreich), something called "zimmels" always comes up with sounds of awe, wonder, and very nearly the sounds of angelic choirs.
As your typical, arrogant college kid, I took great pleasure in informing them that they are stupid, American idiots and that it's not zimmel, it's Semmel. And the plural, being a German word, is not zimmels (duh), it's Semmeln.
Then I arrived in Austria and had a zimmel. And the heavens opened and the choirs sang and I was filled with wonder and awe.
Seriously, though, there was something different about the bread on campus. We bought Semmeln in other places around Austria, Germany, Switzerland - heck, even the grocery store in Gaming itself- and it wasn't the same. Not only was the shape different (they were floret-shaped rather than the typical fan shape that you find elsewhere) but the flavor and texture were different.
I could wax poetic about them, but I won't.
I often wondered if, over the years, zimmels have become larger than life in my memories. They were a part of every meal: broken apart and dipped in butter and strawberry jam for breakfast (I despise strawberry jam. Except with zimmels.) while sitting in the back of your morning class because you overslept, rolled with meat and cheese at lunch, and snuck out of the Mensa (cafeteria) after dinner to dip in the nutella we had in our rooms. There are part of your travel stories, your day-to-day life on campus, and almost an icon of the Gaming campus. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I went back to the Mensa for dinner.
We'd gotten some Semmeln in Vienna and they were much different than the Irish, French, or Italian bread that we've had thus far. I wondered if perhaps the flower zimmel really was just another Austrian roll.
It isn't. They aren't.
After our meal, I stopped into the kitchen to ask the ladies if I could get the recipe.
A) The cafeteria ladies remembered me. That was a bit bizarre.
Apparently our wine-glass-playing in the back room is infamous. Oops.
B) They don't make the zimmels, they buy them from a bakery in town.
After using up precious bandwidth minutes to look it up, we found the website for Czihak Backerei and determined to stop on our way our of town. But the fates were (weren't?) with us and as we headed out of Mass, we realized that one of the stands at the Adventsfest was from Czihak Backerei!
And there he was, Herr Czihak himself, working the stand. I introduced myself, explained our history, and shamelessly flattered him and his baking skills. And then I asked if we could please have his recipe.
Passive language acquisition embeds in the brain better. So as he started talking, I started giggling.
"The recipe is nothing special. It's just bread.
But I'm over sixty years old. And I've been a baker for 50 years. I've been living here in Gaming for thirty five years with my wife and baking all that time.
My son bakes there, too, and his wife and my grandson and his wife. My great grandsons are too young to bake yet - they're only 4 and 6. But it's just bread that I make.
However, I bake it with love and I'm happy when I bake - that's the difference. That's why it's good and that's why it's different."
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