Turkey is the world’s number one producer of hazelnuts. Once I’d learned this critical information, the Austrian obsession with hazelnut baked goods began to make more sense. Turkey and Austria have a long and contentious relationship that’s grounded in empirical — as in empire, not as in the scientific method — sibling rivalry between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans.
I haven’t been to Turkey, so I can’t comment on the long term Austrian impact on Turkish society, but Turks make up a noticeable segment of Austria’s population even now. In my experience, they appear to run the local pizza joints, hold service jobs (when I worked at Sony in Salzburg, the cleaning lady was Turkish), but they’ve also advanced considerably since the guest worker program of the 60s when Turks were invited to Austria to address a labor shortage. Now there’s a Turkish congresswoman (Alev Korun) and there was quite the fuss in 2002 when Turkish-led Do&Co, bought the Demel, one of Vienna’s finest traditional bakeries.
The Italians are second in the world for hazelnuts, that’s why there’s Nutella that’s spread on your crepes — Nutella is their fault, as are surely a lot of other hazelnut based sins. I once had a chocolate cake wrapped in a thick blanket of hazelnut marzipan — I am still thinking about that cake. Regardless of the source of your hazelnuts, the Turks are here to stay, Austria, and they are in your pastry in one way or another, either as the hazelnut filling in your Mannerschnitten or as CEO of your iconic bakery or who knows where else.
If you are lucky, hazelnuts can be found glazed with pale toffee and resting on a thin layer of dark chocolate to make a nussknacker — nutcracker. The nussknacker is something between a candy bar and a cookie and that place where you’ve had just enough booze to be warm and a little bit silly, but not so much that you’re sleepy, saying stupid things, and on the way to something you’re going to regret. The hazelnuts are toasted but not overdone, the chocolate is of a high cocoa content, and the toffee sugar is just starting to brown when it’s used as the glue to hold the entire thing together. It is not the most attractive confection out there, but if you are fond of hazelnuts, it has a great personality.
Hazelnuts do grow in Austria, though I found no mention of orchards or cultivation, either in English or German. (Possibly my research skills are to blame.) Where they are repeatedly mentioned, however, is in discussions of Viennese baking. As with any pastry research, I don’t attribute a value judgement to the nationality of the ingredients, all that matters is whether or not the end results are delicious. So here’s to the extensive cultivation of hazelnuts, to diplomacy that allows for their import to Austria, and to the nussknacker, just one of many fine things created as a result.