Spend a few days here eating at Hungarian restaurants and you’ll quickly become familiar with the classic Hungarian dishes like chicken paprikás and gulyás (better known as goulash). But there’s lots more to eating in Hungary than those ubiquitous dishes. Here are some other of my favorite Hungarian specialties that you must try:
- A bar made of chocolate-covered curd cheese may not sound appealing, but the tasty túró rudi is one of the best-known Hungarian brands, and possibly the country’s most adored confection. Look for them in red and white spotted wrappers in the dairy aisles of grocery and convenience stores.
- You’ll never eat bland grocery store honey (méz) again after tasting the Hungarian single varietal honeys sold at the markets. The most prevalent varieties are acacia and lime blossom, but chestnut and sunflower honey are also commonly found.
- It may sound barbaric, but bone marrow spread on toast and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and paprika is an indulgence worth trying. Look for it on the menus of Budapest’s more traditional restaurants.
- Sweet Tokaj dessert wine gets all of the fame, but the dry and semi-sweet wines from Tokaj can also be phenomenal. Do sip some of the sweet stuff, but also sample other types of Tokaj wine such as dry furmint or hárslevelű, both native Hungarian varietals.
- If you’re drinking homemade stuff, pálinka (Hungarian fruit brandy) can go down like gasoline. But the high-end artisanal stuff can be fantastic. After a big dinner, any type of pálinka from Agárdi or Zimek will make you happy.
- Hungary may be a landlocked country, but it’s paprika laced fisherman’s soup (halászlé), made from freshwater fish like catfish and carp, is excellent. Hungarians like it best when the fish roe and milt are also in the pot. Have a glass of light red Hungarian wine like kadarka or kékfrankos to accompany it.
- Curly haired Mangalica pigs nearly died out during the Communist era since their preference for roaming the woods and foraging for food didn’t mesh with the Communist-era industrial pig farms. Breeders have been slowly bringing them back, and many of Budapest’s best restaurants offer dishes made with their tasty meat. It tastes nothing like the pork you are used to, partially because of its high fat content, which also makes it ideal for sausage and salami making.
- Aranygaluska, “golden dumplings”, are yeast-raised buns, brushed with melted butter, flavored with apricot jam and ground walnuts, and sprinkled with vanilla sugar. It’s traditionally a home-made dish, rarely found in restaurants.
- Now is the season for szilvás gombóc, which is plums wrapped in a potato dough, boiled, tossed in buttery bread crumbs, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Beware, these dumplings are addictive.
- Székely káposzta, a dish best eaten in the winter, is a pork and sauerkraut stew seasoned with paprika and served with sour cream. It’s one of the best things I can think of to eat when the weather is cold.
This list, of course, is just the beginning.
–Carolyn