I don't like marzipan. Even before I developed a nut allergy (marzipan is made of sugar and almond meal), I thought it tasted rather bland. It's not really sweet, not really nutty, and well, not really good, if you ask me.

All the same, if you make a bunch of random stuff out of marzipan for absolutely no discernible reason beyond the sheer joy of making marzipan porcupines and cheeseburgers (for example), you have my full attention.

Marzipan is a well-known art in Vienna, where you're most likely to find a Marzipan Mozart (or Schubert, Wagner, whomever you'd most like to eat). The legendary Demel cafe has a Marzipan Museum, and the windows of many of the city's fine confectioners are decked with large marzipan sculptural goodies which look so wrong, but so right to eat.

Marzipan probably originated in the Middle East or China (nobody's sure), but Vienna seems to have it mastered. Check out these photos from City Confiserie -- and careful, the last one is NSFW:

Gallery: 10 Things You Didn't Expect the Viennese to Make out of Marzipan

My visit to Vienna was sponsored by the Vienna Tourist Board and Cool Capitals, but the opinions expressed in the article are 100% my own.

Filed under: Food and Drink, Austria