Hungarian Cuisine

ungarian people are fond of meats, a tradition dating back to their Nomadic history as hunters. So many of their 'vegetarian' dishes actually include meats - pigs, cattle, poulty, and fish (along with the Greeks, they are the biggest meat-eaters in all of Europe). Paprika is the dominant spice of the peasants, used by virtually every clan in Hungary in most every dish. The scent of paprika wafts through most villages from the Styrian border to Byzantium. Only nobles have access to the popular cheeses, garlic, and chestnuts from Italy and Germany (the peacock is the pride of Magyar noble banquets).

Magyar Dishes Prevelant Across the Anfold

• Gulyas - A kind of beef soup made from cattle. Incredible portions of paprika permeate the stew, as well as green-peppers, onions, gravy, and milk.
• Sarma - A meat mixed with cooked grains and wrapped in cabbage or vine leaves and cooked in lard.
• Tarhonya - Dried noodles introduced by the Turkish and Bulgar tribes.
• Jokai Bableres - Bean soup with generous chunks of ham.
• Halaszle - A fish soup made of perch, pike or catfish, served with carrots, lard, paprika, salt, onions, and vinegar or any other spices available. Men always prepare this dish, as women aren't trusted to make it properly. The soup is shaken, never stirred.
• Hajdu Kapozta - Cabbage with bacon, salt, and wine.
• Bull's Blood - A heavy red wine from the Bukk Mountain region, so powerful that some vintages were forbidded by the church. 80 proof (this wine is particuarly popular among the folk of Rabenstein).
• Kolozsvari Rakottkapuszta - Richly fattening cabbage dish with lots of smoked sausages, onion, lard, salt, and paprika.
• Rostelyos - A dish found on the Anfold, with onions, bacon, salt and paprika heaped onto a slab of beef.
• Egri Csirke - Salted, stuffed chicken, filled with onions, calves liver, wine, milk, paprika, and perhaps bull's blood.

This page last modified 9/14/97.

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