ELEVATING THE LOWLY DUMPLING: FROM PEASANT KITCHENS TO PRESS CONFERENCES

Abstract

Dumplings may be a simple food prepared in Central European kitchens and the object of publicity campaigns to draw culinary tourists to particular regions. Around the world, dumplings can be both a celebratory meal and a way to stretch meager ingredients with tiny bits of meat tucked into larger quantities of cheaper ingredients like wheat flour or potatoes. The Austrian dumpling exemplifies some of the ways that relatively cheap ingredients become both strikingly symbolic and profoundly filling. Scholarly attention to dumplings promises insights that connect the cultural and the culinary, and the many ways that simple foods are also complex. (Food culture, dumplings, Austria, regional promotion)