Great Post!

Anyone not familiar with Anna's (and sometimes Burke's) blog Hodge Vodge/Hogy Vagy please check out their latest adventure. They just got back from a wonderful vacation to Slovenia. Most notably they experienced wonderful European hospitality and artisanal craftsmanship!

I urge you to read this!

Hirschboxerl and Bergkäse

Betwixt the Mozart kugel, the waldhonig, the Hirschboxerl and the Bergkäse I found many new favorites. Not to mention that I found most of these foods in one place, the public market. As I look out the bus window on my way to work every morning, which is a different bus and different destination for every day of the week, and as I travel through Europe one fantastic, heart-warming constant is the sight of the public markets, big and small. You win for public markets Europe!

This delightful discovery was made in Salzburg, Austria and is made locally. The charcuterie artisans use venison to make this very simple yet tasty salami.

The Bergkäse is a mountain cheese that is made in the mountains (duh!) in the immediate area of Salzburg. The wheels are massive, but thin which makes them manageable. Please note the cutting board for this cheese: a table with a large enough diameter for a single wheel of Bergkäse and a giant knife hinged to it to cut to the center of the wheel; genius! The cheese is aged 8 or 12 months with the latter being a little more dry tasting, and sharper. Delicious!

The pretzels are top notch and made fresh daily!

Austrian organic forest honey: probably one of the best souvenirs anyone can find!

The Mozartkugel, first called Mozartbonbon when created in 1890, are a Salzburg native chocolate created by Paul Fürst. Fürst's original achievement of the Mozartbonbon was the first perfectly round confection. The original recipe to this Paris fair gold medal winner (1905) remains a secret, but the subsequent name "Mozartkugeln" had no copyright and has since been used to launch a severely successful campaign of chocolate famedom. I had the good fortune of going directly to the industrial source of this wonderful confection: the Mirabell chocolate factory (A Kraft subsidiary) in Grödig which is just outside Mirabell (Salzburg). Though I wasn't able to tour the factory itself, I was able to go into a store in the factory that sells all of the chocolates, candies, cocoa powder, marzipan, stb. stb. at about a 1/3 of the retail price! It must be noted that the handmade counterparts to the industrial "knock-offs" can still be found in Salzburg in 4 stores that bear the name Fürst Confiserie. The original recipe handmade chocolates continue to win medals over the industrial counterparts today.

Food Fight: A documentary

A quick word before I get on with blogging about my trips to Transylvania and Salzburg. If you see a movie with this title arrive in a theater near you, GO SEE IT! For many people who actually read this blog and know me will already know some, or a lot, of what this movie will tell you, but more people need to be aware of what the role of food plays in their lives. Please, go see this movie, because I won't be able to for a long time.

Here is a link to Michael Ruhlman's blog where I first read about it.



Happy Eating!

Harvest Festival

So to celebrate Halloween before the October vacation, Franny bought a pumpkin at the Mars tér market. Franny and I carved it and named him Csaba!
Then I carved him and made pumpkin soup and toasted pumpkin seeds. I also made a gnocchi dough, and had Franny spent a lot of time rolling and cutting it out. So I put both together and created pumpkin soup with gnochhi dumplings.

Oh the Pleasure of a Simple Soup...

 

So while I'm procrastinating finishing my blog entries for my vacation, from which I learned so much that it's hard to process in even a few sittings, I made some soup. This is a vegetarian soup made from celery root, and has a Hungarian pasta called Eperlevél that finishes it. Enjoy!

A Prelude...

So I went to Transylvania from October 21-October 26 turned around in Budapest and jumped a train to Salzburg, Austria and stayed until I went back to Budapest for Halloween, turned around to Kalocsa then finally back to Szeged tonight. It's been a lot of hours traveling, lots of new foods, and 3 countries. I'll be making a lot of posts, hopefully, about the separate cities and topics.

Lecsó and Tarhonya

 
OK, one last food blog for tonight, I just couldn't wait any more to finally post some of these. A big thanks to everyone who reads through them. So Lecsó is a basic pantry item for any Hungarian kitchen. It is a stew made of tomatoes and paprika, two vegetables that are readily available in mass quantities by the end of the summer. It is not uncommon to see people buying burlap sacks of paprika at the market to make and can this at home. Lecsó can be added into lots of different dishes or to help beef up a sauce.

Tarhonya is a traditional Hungarian pasta that is then formed into pellets and dried. To cook it add onion to fat and saute. Then add the tarhonya to lightly brown, then add paprika, parsley, and water. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Easy and delicious!

Jó étvágyat!

Töltött Paprika

 

A couple of weekends ago when Vivvi, Lauren, and Lyla visited me in Szeged this is what I made. They watched me make it while they ate Fank and Lecso. It was a lot of work, but they didn't mind. :) This has a filling of pork, rice, parsley, carrot tops, and onion. The sauce is made from a roux and tomatoes. This picture does not show the sour cream that should be on the dish as well. Jó étvágyat!

Mashed Potatoes, Szeged Style

 

In an effort to cut down on food costs, I've taken to buying foods that have been put on sale, which is to not say that they are bad, just that they won't be good for long. So here is an example of buying a kilo of small potatoes and turning it into mashed potatoes, with sour cream and what else? Paprika of course!

Eww, McDonald's!

So I'm sitting in McDonald's right now stealing their power and signal because I'm still waiting for internet to be installed in my flat. In fact, two nice gentlemen from T-Kabel showed up on Friday to turn of my cable signal (all three channels) but had not yet received papers for my internet, so no dice. But I found McDonald's on the walking street and they have a wireless signal too. Just in case anyone was wondering I haven't bought anything from them yet, and I'm hoping I don't get caught. I'm trying to be as inconspicuous and in the corner as I can be. (Any readers with iPhones wouldn't be a complete loss if they came to visit) And I decided that I was past due for a blog entry, I apologize to anyone who has actually been checking in to see if I had posted anything yet.

I can't seem to upload any pictures yet but when I can I have some nice shots of Paprika Festival in Kalocsa, Budapest city shots, and I'll have some separate entries for some of the food I've been making while I've been here. So far I continue to gather recipes and ideas for cooking Hungarian food. I hope everyone is doing well! I'll blog again soon! Szeged will be having their own Paprika Festival (Paprika Napok) October 3-5.