A postcard from Hungary

Author Kerstin Rodgers is fascinated by food history and anthropology and takes frequent research trips around the world to pursue these interests. She has made several trips to Hungary, most recently to the paprika growing area of Szeged, near the Romanian border.

By Kerstin Rodgers

The result of multiple occupations over the last 1,000 years, modern Hungarian cuisine is a unique mix, at the crossroads of east and west. It comprises elements from Ottoman, Eastern European, Mediterranean, Slavic and Austrian foods.

The ultimate Hungarian food bible is The Cuisine of Hungary by George Lang, a Hungarian-American restaurateur. An impeccably researched encyclopedia on the history of Magyar cuisine, it includes more than 350 recipes.

Coffee House culture

The Austro-Hungarian empire, which existed from the mid 19th century until the end of the First World War, stretched from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, parts of Poland, Italy, Romania to Ukraine. Budapest, like Vienna, had (and retains to this day) an elegant coffee house culture featuring sophisticated patisserie.

Examples of this Austro-Hungarian include the Hungarian Chocolate Cream cake recipe in Zingerman’s Bakehouse or the classic Beigli (nut roulades, often consumed at Christmas) such as the walnut beigli from Kaffehaus by Rick Rodgers.

A strong Jewish component is also present in Hungarian food. Richard Sax quotes Jewish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who writes nostalgically about Mandulás Kifli (Hungarian Nut Crescents). I’ve eaten a version filled with poppy seeds, another popular ingredient in Hungarian patisserie.

For dessert, Hungarians employ summer fruits such as sour cherry or plum, familiar to former Eastern bloc countries. Marlena Spieler offers a Hungarian cold cherry soup—or for a more chef-y take, try this version from Professional Garde Manger. George Lang (of course) also offers a recipe for this classic dish, known in Hungarian as Meggykeszőce.

Eastern European influences and Soviet occupation

Hungarian food suffered from 1956 to 1989 when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union. The celebrated Gundel restaurant in Budapest became a state operation, resembling an Eastern German canteen.

The paprika farmers were allowed to grow a small amount for personal use, but most farms were turned over to the government, and food production was centralised, resulting in shortages. Rationing was also a feature of the post-World War Two landscape. Haute cuisine was considered bourgeois and capitalist. But Hungary escaped the worst of Soviet Stalinism, having a higher standard of living than other Eastern Bloc countries and developing ‘Goulash communism’, a set of economic reforms named after the Hungary’s most iconic dish.

Having cold winters and hot summers, Hungarian food tends towards wintery fare, hearty and rustic featuring potatoes, cabbage, dumplings, pickles and sour cream.

Turkish influence

During the summer, though, Turkish flavours play more of a role, with stuffed vegetables, red peppers and pickles. When eating in restaurants accompaniments such as pickled turnips are commonplace, for example. The Ottoman influence can also be seen in the strong spa culture; visitors should make sure to go to sites such as the Szechenyi Thermal Bath where Hungarians socialise after work.

Alan Davidson’s magisterial Oxford Companion to Food describes how the Turks brought peppers to Hungary: “the practice of stuffing peppers and aubergines (previously the Hungarians had only stuffed cabbage)”. He also explains how the influence of the Ottoman empire during the 16th and 17th centuries introduced pitta bread (which became the fried flat bread ‘langós’, a forerunner of pizza) and the fine wafer-thin filo pastry (which became strudel, known in Hungary as rétes).

Pickles

I recently spoke to Nick Vadasz, author of The Pickle Jar and the creator of a range of Vadasz pickles, Hungarian-inspired ferments available in British supermarkets.

Nick’s dad arrived in the UK in 1956, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. Along with his grandparents who also came over, Hungarian dishes were an integral part of his childhood. One of the supermarket bestsellers is the Vadasz version of Lang’s recipe for cucumber pickles.

Nick talked of how his gran would make a salad dressing where she’d use lettuce ‘a little gem, or the equivalent back in the day, and she'd make a dressing with lemon juice, sugar, a bit of salt and pepper and water and no oil’. This water-vinegar-sugar combo on a green salad is a Viennese speciality, very refreshing in the summer, so another influence stemming from the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Paprika

Hungary is now synonymous with paprika but the ingredient is somewhat modern, being first introduced in the 16th century from the New World. Hungarian food is unique among Eastern European cuisines in that it often contains heat in the form of hot paprika (though paprika also comes in milder sweet and smoked versions).

While in Hungary, I interviewed Agota Hodi, a female paprika farmer, and Anita Molnar, the woman who runs the Molnar Paprika museum in the paprika growing region around Szeged on the Romanian border. Both women hail from paprika growing dynasties.

Professor Albert Szent-Györgyi of Szeged university used local paprika to identify and isolate Vitamin C, discovering the cure for scurvy.

Hungarian paprika is distinctive because of the deep red colour, aided by ideal growing conditions and plenty of sunshine. Hungarians eat the most paprika in the world, around 800g per capita annually. George Lang says that Spanish paprika is a colouring agent only. Today much of the paprika you buy is from China. Agota Hodi admits that Chinese paprika is good, but maintains that the pepper changes flavour depending on geography and terroir.

Nick Vadasz reminisces: ‘The family favourite was stuffed paprikas. That smell when you walked in the house, or even close to the house, just wafting through the window, was something that instantly reminds me of growing up.’ Paprika is the Hungarian word for peppers, which also became the word for the spice. Paprikás or paprikash is also the name given to the stew made with paprika and sour cream that is a much celebrated feature of Hungarian cuisine. Try George Lang’s classic paprikás recipe, Samuel Goldsmith’s chicken paprikash from the Tinned Tomatoes Cookbook, or Ivy Manning’s loosely-inspired mushroom paprikash, served over pasta.

Another paprika-laden traditional dish is pörkölt, paprikash’s slightly less well known cousin. Pörkölt is drier (rather like a dry curry), and onion is an essential ingredient. Another difference is that the sourcream that is central to paprikash is entirely verboten in pörkölt.

Fish (in a landlocked country)

After the First World War, Hungary lost much territory including access to sea ports. As a result, river fish such as carp, perch, zander are popular. Pike recipes include baked pike with wild mushrooms, also the French quenelles de brochet, and Keith Floyd’s Hungarian-influenced recipe for pike with red peppers.

Zander, popular in Polish and Russian cuisine but less known in the UK, is frequently known as pike-perch as it has the characteristics of both fish. Pike-perch can be cooked whole or fried with salad as seen in A Gift to Young Housewives by Elena Molokhovets. Celebrated Hungarian restaurateur Karoly Gundel lends his name to several Hungarian recipes, like in this recipe for pike-perch à la Gundel. This recipe employs spinach, which Gundel made fashionable, particularly a version in which the greens are lightly steamed.

Goulash

Goulash (gulyás in Hungarian) is often closer to a soup in Hungary, but tends to be a thick meaty stew when cooked and served internationally. It is said to have originated with the herdsmen who roamed the country from the 10th century. Basically it’s a cowboy dish, like baked beans!

Goulash is certainly a dish with multiple interpretations. Generally, all contain a hefty dose of paprika, but the meat used can vary greatly. George Lang sets out his own list of allowable and prohibited variations. He insists:

"Never use any flour. Never use any other spice besides caraway. Never French-ify it with wine. Never Germanize it with brown sauce. Never put in any other garniture besides diced potatoes or galuska. But many variations are possible—you may use fresh tomatoes or tomato purée, garlic, sliced green peppers, hot cherry peppers to make it very spicy, and so on."

Lang offers one goulash recipe using beef and one using mutton. The white bean goulash by Keith Floyd uses just a ham bone. Marlena Spieler has several versions in her Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking—one classic beef steak Hungarian goulash, another recipe with lamb, and even a fish goulash. Robert Carrier, in his 60s classic Great Dishes of the World, makes his goulash with veal, while the recipe in The Settlement Cook Book uses liver.

Fusion approaches include a slow cooker Mexican Goulash recipe from Phyllis Good, a Northern Italian Gulasch with dumplings by Antonio Carluccio and a Tirolean Gulasch with polenta from Valentina Harris. In Anatolia, the authors remark that Turkish chefs claim goulash as dish from Turkey. There are even vegetarian versions such as the Afghan Squash Goulash in Silk Road Vegetarian.

Wine

Hungary has been growing vines since Roman times and Hungarian wine is very good. Probably best-known is Tokaji, a sweet white wine which can rival Bordeaux noble rot sweet wines such as Château d’Yquem in quality, at a much more affordable price. As for red wine, Bull’s Blood (supposedly that is the secret ingredient!) from the Eger region is full-bodied and robust, perfect for accompanying the rich flavours of Hungarian food.

The Hungarian term for wine, bor, has a Persian root rather than coming from Latin. Unlike other European languages, Hungarian derives not from Indo-European, but from the Uralic family (from the Ural mountains), the closest relative of which is Finnish. This is another nod to Hungary’s unique role as a middle European country at the junction of east and west.

I do hope that readers will try some Hungarian recipes,whether it be goulash, paprikash or perhaps one of the exquisite sweet cakes. The style of food ranges from rustic to elegant, appealing to all tastes. If you are inspired, maybe book a trip to Hungary to try the real thing!

About the author

Kerstin Rodgers, also known by her internet moniker @msmarmitelover, is the pioneer of the supper club or home restaurant phenomenon, starting The Underground Restaurant in January 2009. She has since written five books on food including V is for Vegan (available in full on ckbk), and Supper Club: recipes and notes from the underground restaurant (Harper Colllins, 2011). She is an award-winning blogger, winning the Guild of Food Writers Best Blog and Fortnum & Mason’s Best Online Food Writer awards. Her inspiration for recipes comes through her frequent travels.