The meal of a prosperous 19th-century Viennese academic unfolds in several courses: first the Suppe (soup, almost always a beef broth), then the Hauptspeise (the main dish, often a meat), and finally the Mehlspeise — those famous floury sweet entremets that Austria treats as a category of its own, neither quite dessert nor side dish. Apart from the meal stands the Jause, the afternoon break at the café, where a pastry is accompanied by a Viennese coffee. Also preserved in the larder are smoked meats (Selchfleisch) for lean days.

In Vienna, coffee is not a drink; it is an institution. The Kaffeehaus is the true salon of the learned bourgeoisie: here one reads the newspapers hanging from their wooden sticks, and one rediscusses political economy for hours over a single cup. It was in these cafés that the Austrian School, of which Menger is the father, long debated value and marginal utility.