Stories and recipes from my Hungarian family and the history of food in Hungary
It is absolute brass monkeys here in Liverpool today. Proper snow and ice on the ground of the type that my Hungarian relatives deal with each winter. Except for them it lasts for months, not two days. Hungarian weather is not dissimilar to Tuscany. Long hot summers, perfect for ripening grapes and soft fruits, and […]
Read More Rakött – the Art of the Bake part 2My Hungarian grandfather or nagypapa was a bread head. He loved carbs and would, as the family saying went, eat bread with bread. No meal was complete without bread to mop sauces, dip in soups, or even form the main meal spread with dripping and paprika, and topped with sliced onion. It’s a love I […]
Read More Bread with breadThere is a basic triumvirate of Hungarian cookery. The fözelék, the pörkölt and the paprikás. Each method can be altered slightly to suit the main ingredient you have in abundance. The fözelék is vegetable or pulse based – I’ve written about it on here – and doesn’t really translate other than as a vegetable pottage, […]
Read More PaprikásWhen I was born, my father had just received his British citizenship and thus was able, after 10 long years, to return to Hungary to see his family. As is the way, I arrived and my grandfather Aladár departed, in the same month of August so I didn’t get to meet my paternal grandfather or […]
Read More NagymamaIt’s that time of year when the courgettes in the veg patch have absorbed all of that lovely summer rain and swollen into marrows. This makes them a little bit watery, dilutes the flavour a bit but makes them perfect for stuffing or if you’re a Magyar, you make tökfőzelék. Yep. It’s yet another variation […]
Read More Marvellous MarrowsI love cherries. I eat them like sweeties, in greedy handfuls. Spitting out the stones inelegantly, and occasionally tallying them up old school – tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Usually thief. I like to think that means a thief of hearts rather than an actual robber but who knows? […]
Read More Cherry loveAs the weather in Northern England has finally decided to allow us a little glimpse of summer, it seems an apposite time to write about that stalwart of Hungarian summer drinks – the fröccs. Pronounced (by my father) as Frutch – it’s a white wine and soda or spritz. But obviously, being a Hungarian drink, […]
Read More Fröccs and more…Say what now? főzelék? (pronounced fur-zel-lake) What’s that when it’s at home? Well, that’s kind of the point. You’ll rarely find főzelék in a restaurant, though I hear the new generation of Hungarian chefs are starting to bring this epitome of home cooking into their culinary world. So what is it? It’s a way of […]
Read More FőzelékI’ve mentioned previously the long trek from Liverpool to Hungary undertaken every summer by my family and I. Three to four days in a non air conditioned car, fighting with my sisters, shouting at my father to NOT overtake on a blind bend as we drove through various mountain passes, waving at other GB stickered […]
Read More Longing for LángosI was wittering on Twitter the other day about how right Proust was about his madeleines and how the taste, scent or sight of food can trigger memory. Being a somewhat greedy person, there are rather more of these sensory triggers in my life than just a simple cake. One of them is sorrel. A […]
Read More Sour Times
Finom - the food of Hungary 