Austrian-Style Bean Salad

The wonderful city of Graz is the central hub of the southeastern corner of Austria – Arnold Schwarzenegger territory. This is also the location of the famous Steiermark wine region with its rolling green hills dotted with wineries, farms, and forests…and where I enjoyed my first Buschenschank experience.

The very loose translation of this word Buschenschank is Bush Bar – implying something you might find in the jungles of Belize rather than the Austrian countryside.

The Buschenschank experience happens throughout the region from Friday to Sunday. Most are found at wineries or farms in the area, serving food and drinks to visitors in rustic settings. The hosts serve locally produced food from a cold kitchen, meaning nothing is cooked to order. The food and wine are often produced on the farm or winery. The drink choice is local wine or water – sometimes herbal tea, and that’s it. These locations have no coffee or cola because they take regionalism seriously.

One typical serving is a bean salad made from a local bean called Käferbohnen (known in English as a scarlet runner bean…but with a much cooler German name that means beetle bean). These are large, intensely flavored beans with a soft and fatty interior. Most locations serve the beans with sliced onions, one or two chopped tomatoes, a hint of vinegar, the all-important pumpkin-seed oil, and 2-3 tablespoons of freshly grated horseradish. It is a meal in itself…and incredibly delicious when served with a glass of locally produced wine like a fragrant and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc. It’s hard to beat this experience on the life-is-grand scale.

The pumpkin seed oil in this recipe must come from Austria! There are many producers of pumpkin seed oil throughout the world. They are all substandard compared to the Austrian oils, which are superior in flavor and healthy properties. Don’t settle for less!

Difficulty: simple
Yield: makes about 4-6 servings