Gut busting dish of the century: Sztrapacska

At the festival in Kozard we were introduced to what I would call my dream come true dish and the only thing that actually made me sick on the trip. Strapacska. This dish makes Langos look like a light snack.

You start with a bowl full of little mashed potato dumplings in the style of spaetzle or gnocchi. Then you mix the dumplings with a large handful of crumbled ewe's cheese which is the Hungarian version of goat feta. Stir that up so that it's nice and creamy. Add to the top a hefty dollop of sour cream and drizzle a scoop of bacon grease on top. The first few bites are pure delicious creamy love and then you begin to think about what you're consuming. The indigestion that follows is hard to beat.

Click the pic below for a video showing how this amazing dish is made.

From Hungary 2

A few days after being introduced to Sztrapacska at the fest, we headed to Matraszentimre, a tiny mountain town off the scenic highway 24 where we heard there was a restaurant that specializes in the stuff.


Kemences Csarda Restaurant


We sat. We ordered. We ate. We went to the bathroom. End of story.

Kozard?

Before we left for this trip people seemed perplexed about our choice of vacation. What made us choose Hungary? I'll admit that it may be more obvious why people go to Maui, Aruba, or even Italy, But the curious thing is that since we got here, even the Hungarians don't understand why we'd want to come here for two weeks.

Q: Hungary only or visit other countries?
A: One week in Budapest and then we travel around in a car in Hungary only.
Q: Why Hungary?

Months of being asked this question forced us to do some real introspection. Each time we were asked, we went deep into our souls to come up with a good answer.

A1: We wanted to go to Europe and we thought Hungary would be cheap.
A2: We've been wanting to visit Eastern Europe for a while.
A3: We've both already been to Prague.

Well its finally time to admit the real reason that we came to Hungary. We came for a food festival, called Hungarian Flavours-Hungarian Colours, in the tiny town of Kozard in Northern Hungary. When I say tiny, I mean it. I think there are 186 people in the town which lies at the foot of the Cserhat Mountains where the Paloc people come from. Side note: Paloc people make Paloc soup which is beef soup with green beans, potatoes and sour cream. Definitely one of the best things we've eaten here. While most tourists come to this area to go to Hollókő, a little traditionally preserved village that has become a UNESCO world heritage site, we went to Kozard.

When we first started thinking about going on a trip somwhere, Jon happened upon the Kozard festival on some obscure webpage that I can't even find right now. I emailed the contact address and confirmed that the festival was happening in September. Once that was confirmed, we booked our flights and for almost six months we've been planning our itinerary around Kozard.

The most information we could find about Kozard came from www.agroservice.hu which has little in English, but does have contact information for Pal Hajas Dr. PhD/CSc who seems to be, not only the mayor of Kozard, but is also spearheading the revival of fruit production, agrotourism, and rural agricultural collaboration with other European countries through his organization. The whole thing reeked with a delicious Slow Food slant and so I was definitely excited about heading to this festival.

After leaving the beautiful wine region in the south, we headed north not knowing what to expect. We negotiated our way through the maze of highways in Budapest and successfully hit the M3 which is the main northeast artery in Hungary. After exiting the highway we took lefts and we took rights, hoping that there would eventually be a sign for Kozard. Finally we saw it. Kozard with an arrow pointing right. Woohoo! We were on our way.



Kozard country is absolutely gorgeous. While the vines of the south are pretty, this area is more mountainous and green. It feels like true agricultural land. The villages are small and picturesque and the country air is heavy with the small of mangalica pigs and fruit trees. We drove down the meandering roads and when we saw the "masses" of people walking from the closest village, we knew we were headed to the right place.





Upon our arrival entertainment had already begun at the festival stage. Jon and I looked at each other...was that Bryan Adams, Summer of '69 blaring from the speakers? I do believe it was. Though nobody was actually performing for the growing crowd, people seemed to really enjoy the music.


Once Bryan Adams ended, some Hungarian Elvis impersonators hit the stage and we figure it was time for us to hit the food booths.


Kürtőskalács are Hungarian pastries covered in cinnamon and sugar. This was the first booth was approached and we wanted to save ourselves for what was to come so we didn't get one. That makes me sad.


The Kozard area is "famous" for fruit production. Lots of apples at the festival. Obviously we didn't waste our appetites on these colorful little buggers.


Fried mangalica pork. Naturally this booth was frying the already insanely greasy mangalica patties in oil.


Last but not least we discovered the wonderful and gut busting Sztrapacska.


This booth gave us the arguably best picture of our trip. Needs no explanation. Obviously even swarthy Sztrapacska makers, dressed in traditional garb eat ice cream here.

Sztrapacska deserves its own post. Come back for more.

Siklos Castle

Our first stop after leaving Villany, was the Siklos Castle which sits atop a hill overlooking the beautiful Siklos-Villany wine region. Not only is the castle well preserved and fun to explore for the great views, but it houses a number of wacky museums and was definitely worth the stop.


Always on the lookout.


Pictures hanging in the dungeon explain what happened in the spooky castle.


Castle chapel.


Glove museum room.


Hungarian tool museum room.


Room of animal skulls.


View from the top.

Vino in Villany

The best thing about wine tasting in Hungary is that the many of the vineyards that dot the landscape have cellars in their respective village. Each village has a street lined with colorful old doors that open to tasting rooms which then open to dark cellars that extend deep into the hillside. This makes it possible to taste wine from many different winemakers, without getting in the car!

The village where were we staying, Villany, has the perfect wine tasting street with lots of wine cellars and eateries.



Off the main drag, pictured above there are little country roads lined with vineyards and all the inhabitants are into making wine. These people were installing wine making facilities right in their yard.

Just in time, because harvest season is obviously about to begin!

We spent the morning wandering through Villany drinking up as many of the local grape varieties as possible. Mind you, a tasting is really a whole glass of wine and costs anywhere from 75 cents to maybe 10 bucks for the most expensive wine we could find. Our glasses of wine averaged about $2 which allowed us to drink A LOT OF WINE. The receipt from our hotel is at least 4 pages long, mostly consisting of "tastes" of wine.

After wandering around the village we stopped and soaked up the wine with some "salty" strudel.


Then headed back to the hotel to play at the spa.


We hooked up with a group of Americans and Hungarians in the afternoon and hired the "Retro Bus" to drive us to the neighboring village of Villánykövesd for more tasting.

Unfortunately because its harvest time, many of the cellars were closed. But we found two young guys sitting at their cellar and spent a good deal of time tasting their wine.


They took us deep into the cellar for a barrel tasting of their cab franc/merlot.



We also tasted their rose which was in the process of fermenting. It tasted a bit like a smoothie.


After drinking up all they had to offer, we wandered through the basically empty town until we found a man crushing his recent harvest. I even got a chance to take over for a while.


The day ended with a delightful meal of deconstructed beef stew and a successful tasting of Unicum.

Welcoming 5770 with the people of Pecs. Shana Tova!

Today is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and we spent a lovely Erev Rosh Hashanah (New Years Eve) ringing in year 5770 with the people of Pecs, Hungary. Note: today is also International Talk Like Pirate Day.

Pecs is one of Hungary's largest cities with about 150,000 people. It's a college town and has also been named one of the three European Capitals of Culture. Because of this designation a great deal of the old city is under construction, making it rather loud and congested when we initially stopped here a few days ago on our way to the Villany wine tasting region. But during our short stop we did visit the last remaining pre-WWII synagogue in the city.



We were greeted at the door by an old man sleeping in a chair in the front of the building. His name was Bela and he awoke with a start to usher us into the synagogue. He asked us where we were from- the USA- and he grinned exposing his blackened rotting front teeth and said, "oh the Jews love the USA!" Then he established that I was Jewish and Jon was not and told us we were both "lucky!" He handed us a seven page booklet with the history of the synagogue and showed us into the sanctuary. I sat in the Pews and read the booklet while Jonny snapped pics. Like the temple on Dohany street in Budapest, this synagogue was very grand with a bit of wear and tear.




As we were leaving we asked Bela if there were to be any services for Rosh Hashanah. His eyes lit up and he dragged us over to a paper with two highlighted sentences written in Magyar. There are two days of the year that they hold services in the synagogue, the eve of Rosh Hashanah and Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur. The rest of the time services are held in a community center (much more like what I'm used to.) The reason they don't use the synagoge is because there are only 120 Jews left in this city after the "De-Judaization of Pécs" during the Holocust.

I was very happy to have the chance to go to high holiday services here and spend it with this tiny community which has persisted despite such a hateful history. It seems that even recently there has been antisemitic attacks on this community. It takes a pretty insecure person to be worry about 120 people in a city of 150,000.

On a positive note, we were excited to return and Bela was too. He said, "we'll be waiting for you on Friday!". Ok then, we had to come back. We booked a room at the hotel overlooking the temple and returned last night for services. We were expecting 120 elderly folks waiting for us at the door. We definitely gave ourselves too much credit. To our surprise and joy it was a typical scene inside. Kids were running around, old ladies that look like my grandmas were chatting in the pews, and young men were sneaking in for their once-a-year visit to shul. It was like any other high holiday gathering except smaller and in a much grander setting. No tickets required. We sat (and stood) through the one hour service. Jonny experienced the up/down nature of Jewish prayer. We listened to a sermon in Magyar. People looked relatively bored as always. Two girls played hide and seek in the pews and I remembered the days of sneaking out of services with my friends to run around the synagogue property. All in all it was a great way to spend the holiday.

On this Day of Remembrance...

The Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest is massive and gorgeous and frankly looks like a Catholic church. This is not the synagogue of my childhood which was housed in an elementary school. When I think of synagogue I do not think of gilded embellishments, stained glass and intricate wood carvings but that's what this place is all about. It's a sight to behold.



But visiting this amazing place is bittersweet. You cannot visit without getting a pit in your stomach. The Nazis killed 600,000 Hungarian Jews. That's 10% of the total killed during the Holocaust, which I find amazing since this is such a small country. The Hungarian demographic, particularly regarding Jews became completely different once the Nazis took over Hungary in March of 1944.

It was the end of the war by the time the Nazis got here and they ramped things up fast. In no time all the Budapest Jews were locked behind the walls of a ghetto. The Nazis used the gorgeous synagogue as a horse stable. The courtyard of the synagogue grounds is a Jewish cemetery where the Jews were forced to bury their dead.



They quickly started transporting Jews by the hundreds of the thousands to Auschwitz and disposing of them...no swanky work camps for these Jews. The Hungarian Nazi party called the Arrow Cross helped out by ridding the country of tens of thousands of Jews with a death march to Austria. They would also hunt them down throughout the city, shoot them and throw them in the river. Nice huh. Sorry to be so blunt, but how else should people talk about this? It is brutal and all I can think about is how scary it must have been for those people. It's like a horror movie.

But there are monuments to this atrocity all over the city. The garden behind the temple has this beautiful metal tree with tags memorializing thousands of Jewish names.




And this instillation represents those that perished in the Danube.

An Experiment in Unicum

The Hungarian national liquor is this dark medicinal dreck called Unicum. According to their website, the booze is made from a secret blend of 40 herbs and spices. Every bar, cafe, restaurant, and souvenir shop in the country hawks the stuff.

Since we arrived here I have been meaning to try it. I finally got my shot (pun intended) last night. After wine tasting all day, drinking more wine in our room before dinner, and having a few more glasses with dinner, I decided it was the perfect moment for my Unicum experiment.

Like any good scientist, I felt I needed a large sample size to assure accurate results. So I ordered the double shot. The stuff tasted like rotten Jagermeister with lots of cinnamon.



At first the drink had a positive effect on my demeanor, and my desert was particularly enjoyable.

.

Then the experiment went horribly wrong. Here was the result about 15 minutes after consumption of the sample.



Also, the next morning mysterious blue stains had appeared on my pillow. It could have been the result of blue colored drool being being emitted during the night. We are still running some tests.



I guess the experiment was either a complete success or a complete failure, depending on your perspective.

New World Carb Crop Conquers Hungary?

On Wednesday we rented our Fiat Panda and drove the 200 hundred kilometers between Budapest and Pecs', which is in the south of the country near the Croatian border. We knew this was agricultural countryside and were interested to get a look at their farms.



We expected to see Old World crops such as grapes, olives, etc. Instead we encountered mile after mile (er, kilometer) of CORN. It was literally the only crop they were growing. It was like Iowa except with centuries old farmhouses. And quaint villages, and Magyar peasants. And nobody spoke English. Actually it wasn't really like Iowa, but there was a lot of corn!



This was perplexing because they don't eat corn here. Not once have we seen a corn dish on a menu. We inquired about this subject to Frank from Arizona, our new Hungarian-American friend. His cousin lives here. He says they use the corn to feed all of the pigs. This makes sense, because if there is one thing that has been on every menu here it is pork.


Corn --> Greasy delicious slice of pig on a plate.