BUDA BITES

The New York Times travel section last weekend was devoted to food related travel, and there was a nice piece by Mimi Sheraton about her visits to some of the world’s greatest markets and their cultural importance. I’ve always counted visiting markets as one of the highlights of traveling to new places, even more so than museums. Exploring a country’s food and shopping style gives you a fascinating peek into new cultures. I even love exploring grocery stores in new countries–with their funny packaging, languages I don’t understand, produce I might not often see, and products which I’m not sure what do do with or how to eat. Although when I’m traveling it’s always frustrating to see something that looks so good (or unusual) and all I want to do is take it home and cook it, but can’t because I’m staying in a hotel.

Sheraton writes:

“IT is a given that no serious traveler would forgo visits to museums, cathedrals, castles, monuments and legendary streets. Yet food markets deserve equally high billing on a must-see list. For as inspiring as the more standard sights can be, they do not rival the ebullience of modern-day markets and their colorful links to the economy, customs and even dialects of a city. In a world ever more homogenized, food markets afford visitors one of the few opportunities to glimpse locals going about one of their essential daily chores.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always loved markets and trips to Eastern Market, my neighborhood market in DC, were part of my weekend routine while I was growing up. Eastern Market is a true neighborhood market where people will go just to see who they’ll run into, even if they don’t plan to buy anything.

Budapest’s markets, on the other hand, are more straightforward places where serious shoppers stock their baskets and bags with little need to socialize. I was happy to see that Sheraton mentioned Budapest’s Central Market Hall in her article. I always love shopping there, but it feels tame in comparison to some of Budapest’s less central markets like the Bosnyák tér Market and the Lehel téri Market.If you’re visiting Budapest the Central Market Hall should be the first market you visit, but you’ll get so much more of the “living theater” that Sheraton writes about by checking out the city’s more neighborhood-oriented markets.

“Attending this living theater, one can assess the local economy by noting the quality and variety of foods available and compare prices to our own. One can observe how locals treat one another.”

The best part about visiting markets, even the ones that are familiar to me where I live in Budapest, is discovering new things. Last weekend I picked up these medlars, which I had never tried before, just because they looked so odd. I can’t say that I really liked them. The mushy insides tasted (and looked) almost like apple sauce, although more acidic, and not really pleasant. Perhaps my medlars were too soft, or not soft enough. I’m not sure. I only managed to eat one and the rest are sitting in the refrigerator until I figure out what to do with them. Anyone have any ideas?