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It’s starting to feel less and less like summer here it Budapest, and a few days have even been downright cold. This weather may manage to bring an end to one of my guiltiest recent habits–my daily fixes of túró rudi ice cream bars (or, more accurately, “Pöttyös Jégkrém”). The túró rudi, in case...
{Plum Dumplings} As I’ve already mentioned, plum dumplings are one of my favorite Hungarian foods. Plums are now flooding the markets, and I’ll be taking full advantage of them until they’re gone. Hungarians are passionate about these dumplings, and it’s easy to see why after you try one (or many). They combine salty and...
{Pasta with Curd Cheese and Stewed Peppers and Tomatoes} What can be better than pasta smothered with curd cheese (túrós csusza) topped with paprika-tinted pepper and tomato stew (lecsó)? It only requires simple ingredients, and I could eat it night after night (which I sometimes do when there’s a big batch of lecsó around)....
{Plum Jam} Until last summer when I discovered how easy it is to make jam in my own kitchen, I coveted the jars of homemade apricot jam that my mother-in-law gave us. I worried about the gap between when our jar ran out and when we’d get a new one. Then I watched how...
Like good Hungarian restaurants, it’s also hard to find Hungarian literature in English outside of Hungary. Even in Hungary the selection isn’t great (although if you’re in the habit of scouring the antikváriums you’ll occasionally come across some out-of-print finds). In America, fans of Hungarian literature (or readers who want an introduction to the...
This is the second summer in a row that we’ve left Budapest and headed to the Hungarian countryside for some falusi turizmus (or “rural tourism”) and we’re already planning our next trip. It was a fantastic week of total isolation spent in a tanya (peasant farm house) on the prairie, not far from Kecskemet....
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...
One of the things I like best about living in Budapest is doing my shopping at the markets, especially in August when there’s so much good stuff there. My neighborhood market, the Fény utca piac, also happens to be my favorite market in the city. On some days old ladies come and set up...
In Hungary there are food festivals to celebrate nearly every commonly used ingredient, from the humble onion to the walnuts that are essential to bakers. Last weekend was the annual food festival in the village of Nagyszakácsi, which translates as “master chef.” Legend has it that this is where all royal chefs in Hungary...
