Johann Georg Lahner
Johann Georg Lahner (born August 13, 1772 in Gasseldorf , now in Ebermannstadt ; † April 23, 1845 in Vienna ) is considered the inventor of the Viennese sausages , which he himself called Frankfurter and sold as such in his butcher's shop. The master craftsman was the founder of the family business in the Austrian capital.
Life
The craftsman came from a poor farming family. He stayed in his home town of Gasseldorf until 1795. In the barren Franconian Switzerland, living conditions were difficult back then. His small-farmer parents urged the young man to seek his fortune in a foreign country when it was difficult for them to find food for themselves and their boarder.
Lahner decided to go to Frankfurt am Main and did an apprenticeship as a butcher there . He was instructed in all professional skills and also learned the work steps involved in the production of local sausages. After completing his training, the journeyman went on tour. He ended up on the Danube , where he was hired as a helm on a ship going downstream. In Vienna, the good-looking journeyman butcher disembarked. That was around 1800. He looked around for work in the profession he had learned. After a few years as a chopping assistant, Lahner started his own business in 1804 as a master with his own smokehouse in the suburb of Altlerchenfeld . A wealthy lady gave him a loan of 300 guilders to get him started.
A Viennese newspaper report dated May 15, 1805 that “strange objects” are hanging in the shop window of Lahner Am Schottenfeld No. 274 (today Neustiftgasse 111). Lahners sausages were talk of the town and gradually developed to the desired delicacy among the people as in the glitterati . His “Frankfurter”, as Lahner called them in memory of his apprenticeship, were soon delivered to the court, where the majesties liked to eat them. Prominent lovers of this sausage, which is popular as a fork breakfast and as a snack between meals, were Johann Nestroy , Franz Schubert , Johann Strauss and especially Adalbert Stifter . He had friends deliver the sausages to him by stagecoach to Linz , 180 kilometers away , which was only possible in winter for reasons of durability. He thanked his friend Axmann, who sent him “20 pairs of Frankfurter 1 fl 40 kr.” By express mail in February 1858 : “We like things so much that our little laborer Josefine said they were better than a capon (me don't say that), and that my wife kept saying at lunch throughout February: You see, the cold continues, we still had enough sausages. "" Let's stop the art now, "said Adalbert Stifter in 1858," and let's move on to something more important and serious ”, namely the Frankfurter Würsteln. He loved her. His sausage transport between Vienna and Linz seems to have worked smoothly. While the Viennese already existed in Milan in 1842 and in Amsterdam from 1861, they were only produced in Linz from 1865.
Lahner married the Austrian Anna Resler. The four sons of the two all became butchers. In 1832 the demand for the sausages had become so great that Lahner's craft business, meanwhile expanded to include a butcher's shop, moved to the property at Am Schottenfeld 51 (today Neustiftgasse 112, identical to Kaiserstraße 99), where the company existed until 1967.
Johann Georg Lahner, who was born in Franconia, had become a respected man and was granted citizenship in Vienna in 1842 . Shortly after handing over the operation to his son Franz Lahner died in 1845, resident Am Schottenfeld 51. The cause of death was pericardial dropsy on the death certificate . Lahner's final resting place in Vienna's central cemetery was leveled in 1975.
Frankfurters
Frankfurter sausages made from coarse roast pork were known to the master butcher from his apprenticeship. The butchers' guild in the Main metropolis made sure that beef and pork were strictly separated. In Vienna, however, there was no such strict demarcation. In addition, the sausage products there were finer due to the greater chopping of the raw material. Lahner experimented with a mixture of beef and pork fillings . He also made the sausage meat with a much finer consistency. Lahner then mildly smoked the filled Saitling . The difference in the production process between original Frankfurter sausages made from pork and Viennese sausages still exists today.
The original recipe has not survived, but there are references to the original Frankfurters in the commemorative publication for the 125th anniversary of the Lahner company: “The meat, which has been carefully freed from all tendons, is first chopped up appropriately with chopping, then pounded soft on wooden sticks with heavy wooden sticks and with large chopping knives, which are operated by hand by two assistants working towards each other, cut into very small pieces until the sausage meat is made from it by mixing it with pork in a wooden trough, which is made with a large hand syringe, which is supported on the thigh , is pressed into the sheep string attached to the attachment tube. The long sausage that rolls out of it is then cut into correspondingly short parts and twisted into a pair in the middle, after which the sausages are smoked and cooked. "
The sausage and butcher's handbook from 1950 recommends the following recipe for the production of Frankfurter Würstel (10 pairs) : “1.5 kg of lean pork, 1 kg of tough bacon, 65 g of salt, 5 g of sugar, 1 g of saltpeter, 6 g of pepper, 2.5 g ginger, 3.5 g cardamom. Put the lean pork roughly chopped up and mix it with saltpeter, salt and sugar in the refrigerator for one night, then turn it gently the next day, chop it well with water and all the missing spices, then add the finely twisted bacon and let everything run a few more times. So that the sausages turn nice and red, it is advisable to let the crushed mass stand for one night. Then fill the pork intestines, twist off in pairs of 125 g, pre-dry them warm and smoke them until they are golden yellow. ”Currently, Frankfurters consist of the following ingredients, depending on the manufacturer:
Variant l: beef, bacon, water, nitrite curing salt, starch, spices, sucrose, sodium-potassium polyphosphate, ascorbic acid, flavor enhancer: sodium glutamate.
Variant 2: pork, bacon, water, table salt, preservatives: E 250 ; Starch, spices, stabilizer: E 331 , E 471 ; Antioxidant: E 300 ; Flavor enhancer: E 621 .
After his death
The Lahners' family business had decades of success with the founder's recipe. In 1855 the Viennese sausages were presented to the public at the Paris World Exhibition and also sold. At the first Viennese cookery exhibition in 1884, the local Frankfurters were awarded a gold medal, which led to a demand for 10,000 pairs of sausages in a short time. In 1893, the Viennese sausages caused a sensation overseas at the world exhibition in Chicago . The success of the new creation quickly led to imitations by other butchers and mass production in meat factories . Around 1906, a great-grandson of the company's founder offered "sausages in a dressing gown" in a butter dough casing, which are still made in Vienna today. After the descendants died out, the traditional Viennese company ceased business in 1967.
The Upper Franconian Gasseldorfer, now part of Ebermannstadt , had the copyright for “Wienerla” protected by patent in 2003 based on the original recipe by Johann Georg Lahner.
literature
- Lahner Johann Georg. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 404.
- Andreas Kloner: A glorious couple. For the 200th birthday of the Frankfurter Würstel. ORF radio feature 2005, 54 min.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ANNO : Illustrirte Kronenzeitung, April 13, 1934, p. 2
- ↑ Kurt Palm : 20 pairs by express mail.
- ^ The poet and the sausages: a petitesse in: Die Presse, Spectrum, September 18, 1999, IV.
- ^ Vienna library : Anton Ziegler: House scheme in the kaiserl. royal Police districts Neubau: contains the suburbs: Ortisei, Neubau, Schottenfeld and Spitlberg. Vienna 1837 , p. 50
- ↑ Matricula-Online: Death book Vienna-Schottenfeld, Tom. XXIII, fol. 40
- ^ ANNO : Wiener Zeitung, April 27, 1845, p. 5
- ↑ See Kurt Palm.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lahner, Johann Georg |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Austrian butcher, inventor of the Viennese sausages |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 13, 1772 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gasseldorf , Franconian Switzerland |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 23, 1845 |
| Place of death | Vienna |