Franz Sacher
Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Template:Expand German
Franz Sacher (16 December 1816 in Vienna – 11 March 1907 in Weikersdorf) was an Austrian<ref name="BZ">Template:ANNO</ref> confectioner, best known as the inventor of the Sachertorte.
Biography
According to Sacher's son Eduard, in 1832 Austria's minister of foreign affairs, Prince Metternich, ordered his court's kitchen to create a special dessert for a dinner to be attended by high-ranking guests. Dass er mir aber keine Schand' macht, heut' Abend! ("Let there be no shame on me tonight!"), he is reported to have declared. On the day of the dinner the chief cook of Metternich's household was taken ill, and the task of preparing the dessert had to be passed to Franz Sacher, then in his second year of apprenticeship at the palace. The result would be the chocolate cake devised on the spot by the 16-year-old trainee. The story was probably invented by Eduard many years later, to appeal to "Viennese nostalgic for their imperial past".<ref name="krondl">Michael Krondl, Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert, Template:Isbn, 2011, p. 290-291: "my best guess is that the Metternich creation story originates with Eduard Sacher"</ref>
Sacher was born in Vienna to Anton Sacher and Anna Löw and died in Baden bei Wien, where he was buried in the (Saint Helena Cemetery).<ref name="BZ" /> Eduard opened the Hotel Sacher in 1876, near the State Opera House in Vienna. The Sachertorte is said to be instrumental in spreading the fame of the hotel; or perhaps the other way around.<ref name="krondl"/> The exact recipe as created by Sacher himself is a closely guarded secret.
Personal life
Franz Sacher and his wife Rosa b. Wieninger had three sons.
- Franz († 1889; Age: 48/49)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> took over the business of his father in the 1860s, and later became the restaurateur and hotelier in Bucharest, then Head of Marine Casinos in Pula;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Eduard (1843–1892) founded the Hotel Sacher in Vienna in 1876;
- Carl (1849–1929) founded Sacher's Hotel & Curanstalt in Helenental in 1881.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Tribute
On 19 December 2016, Google celebrated Sacher's 200th birthday with a Google Doodle.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>