Cheese, Sausage and Bacon

“Käse, Wurst und Speck” (cheese, sausage and bacon) is how most Brettljausen describe themselves in Tyrol, in small print under the dish’s name. Of course, such a description is open to a broad interpretation. Like, are we talking about a single type of cheese or multiple ones? Is it a Bauchspeck or a Schinkenspeck or both? And – the most philosophical question of all – what exactly is a sausage?

Unfortunately, the Feilalm took the description too literally. There was actually nothing on my wooden plank except mountain cheese (quite tasty even without the herbs spread over it), Speck and a boring sausage we in Vienna call a “Wiener” (but which no doubt has a much fancier Tyrolean name). The most “exciting” thing was to cut the fat off the Speck, because otherwise the first bite into a slice of bread with Speck on it pulled all the fat with it, resulting in a less than a pleasant experience of trying to swallow the hard-to-chew fat bits.

I liked the service, I liked the beer, I liked the cabbage salad, I truly enjoyed the view that one has from the hut over the village of Pertisau and the Achensee behind it, but I did not enjoy the Brettljause a minute. It was too basic, too overpriced and really not very good.