Welcome Innsbruck - Winter 2017/18

W E L C O M E 44 K U L T U R fahren“, findet sich Christoph Munding damit ab, dass seiner Kreativität Grenzen gesetzt sind. „Auf der anderen Seite ist es dann aber toll, alte Sachen neu zu interpretieren und zu verfeinern, weiterzuentwickeln. Das ist fast noch interessanter als etwas Neues, Verrücktes zu machen.“ Aber manchmal, wenn sich die eingesperrte Kreativität und die immer noch vorhandene Rebellion über den Weg laufen, da kauft Christoph Munding Yuzu ein. Ganz absichtlich. W I t is one the city’s oldest coffeehouses and confectioneries and once, from 1680 onwards, belonged to the famous Gumpp family of ar- chitects, who gave the building, beside many others in Innsbruck, its Baroque appearance, before it found a new owner at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Jo- hann Nepomuk Munding, originally from Überlingen on Lake Constance, arrived in Tyrol. Along the way he had worked for gingerbread bakers and sweetmeat makers. In Innsbruck he finally worked at the confectionery of city cook Kircher, at the Gumpphaus in Kiebachgasse. Hardworking young man that he was, he took over the business after only a little while, first as a tenant, then he bought the whole building and, in 1803, opened the Damencafé Konditorei Munding (the Ladies’ Café and Confection- ery Munding). Not only the ladies – who thus finally had a café they could enter without male accompaniment – were greatly pleased. Archduke Eugen von Tirol appointed the confectioner his personal valet and purveyor, as did Prince Ludwig von Sachsen. It was also Johann Nepomuk Munding who, at the beginning of 1860s, put the first Christmas tree in the window of his confectionery and thus whipped up the feelings of his Catholic fellow citizens. He was even called a heathen. Hard to imagine how young the tradition of the Christmas tree is in this part of the world. His son Hans finally took over the busi- ness and invested a lot of work into the jam manufactory in Adamgasse and into the schnapps distillery. Among the unique specialties of the house at the time were Munding’s fruit lemonade, the Tyrolean Früchtebrot (fruit bread), and Munding’s Tyrole- an punch. These Gutelen (goodies), highly decorated at the Paris World Fair, were sold as far afield as East India. As the masses thus having to be produced far exceeded what was usual for a normal confectionery, Hans Munding had to be inventive. He developed the world’s first me- chanical dough mixer. Five thousand of these machines, produced by Alpina, were sold in 2000 around the world, before the patent expired. One of its models can still be seen at the Technical Museum in Vienna. Yet Hans Munding invented a lot of other things besides, for example a cold-chain packaging, thanks to which Tyrol’s first ice cream, made by Munding of course, could be distributed all over Tyrol. The succeeding Munding generations too exhibited a spirit of discovery and an urge for pioneering feats. Thus the Mundinghaus, in 1980, was the first building in Innsbruck’s Old Town that bore solar collectors on its roof. Today, the siblings Almut and Christoph Munding run the confectionery and café in the fifth generation, and do so just as inventively as their predeces- sors, with a slight penchant for excessive creativity and a little spark of rebelliousness, which tastes of matcha and yuzu. For Christoph Munding, who in fact never wanted to end up in the bakery, goes abroad every year, regularly needs a time out. And usually he returns home with a little breath of fresh air, i.e. new ideas, interesting ingredients. For a while he ex- perimented with yuzu. Then with matcha tea. “Everything was green, even the cream slices. Many of our customers found that interesting, but in the end they still ordered the Sachertorte,” the confec- tioner remembers. And also the macarons, which the Mundings were the first to offer in the whole of Tyrol, did not find too many fans at the time, immediately after the Sex and the City movie had hit the cinemas. You remember the scene at the desert tent where the ladies enjoyed macarons? To- day, they are a great favourite with custom- ers. For some things the time comes, for others it never does. “Sure it’s frustrating sometimes. But you can’t drive the mo- tor boat in the bathtub either,” Christoph Munding says, accepting that his creativ- ity is set boundaries. “On the other hand, it is great to reinterpret old things and to refine them. That’s almost more interest- ing than doing something new, something crazy.” But sometimes, when caged crea- tivity and the still surviving rebelliousness cross paths, Christoph Munding buys in yuzu. Quite on purpose. W Hans Munding entwickelte die erste mechanische Teigrührmaschine der Welt – 5.000 Stück wurden von der Alpina 2000 weltweit verkauft, bevor das Patent auslief. // Hans Munding developed the world‘s first mechanical dough mixer. Five thousand of these machines were sold by Alpina around the world in 2000, before the patent expired. Sie haben Tradition in der Konditorei: Die Hoferkugeln und die Schindeln gehören seit Jahrzehnten zum fixen Repertoire – und sind nur zwei der unzählig vielen Köstlichkeiten. // Traditional features at the confectionery: the Hoferkugeln and the Schindeln have been part of the repertoire for decades, and they are just two out of countless treats. © ANDREAS FRIEDLE