Gretel always said that you can tell where an Austrian comes from by which Mehlspeise they argue about loudest. In the Waldviertel, the poppy seed country of Lower Austria, that argument is Mohnnudeln. Soft potato noodles, the size and shape of a child's finger, tossed in foaming butter and rolled through a dark, fragrant mixture of ground Graumohn and sugar. It's a main course. It's also, by any other country's standards, a dessert. Austrians don't care about that distinction and neither should you.

I first ate Mohnnudeln on one of the summer trips with Gretel and my grandmother Eva, somewhere in the Waldviertel where the poppy fields run all the way to the horizon in June and July. Gretel ordered them at a Gasthaus and watched me eat the entire plate without speaking, which is how you know a child is truly happy. She told me the poppy seeds had to be gray, not blue, because that's what grows in the Waldviertel and the flavor is completely different: deeper, earthier, almost like roasted hazelnuts with a floral note behind them. I've never forgotten that.

The noodles themselves are a simple potato dough, the same family as Kartoffelknodel but shaped into small rolls and boiled instead of steamed. The technique is forgiving if you follow two rules: use floury potatoes and don't overwork the dough. You're not making bread. You're making something that should hold together just enough to survive the pot, then melt against your tongue the moment the butter and poppy seeds arrive. This is good Austrian home cooking at its most honest, three or four ingredients doing exactly what they're supposed to do, with no place for anything to hide.