BUDA BITES

Our two year-old daughter has been eating solids since she was five months old and has gone through many dramatic food phases since then. In the beginning she loved plain yogurt, and sometimes ate two, or even three, at one sitting. And she hated milk. The one time that her aunt tried to feed her a spoonful of jarred baby food she spit it out. We never saw the need to buy commercial baby food when we could just make our own “real” food for her. In her first months of eating she was an obsessive eater, and when she was around one we had to start removing the food from the table, because she would just keep eating and eating. She has calmed down a bit, eats normal portions, and still has lots of foods that she really loves.

I suspect that if we were living in America her food preferences might be a little different. We go to a lot of restaurants, and thankfully there are none of those horrible kids menus here featuring French fries, hot dogs, and fried chicken nuggets. Hungarians, it seems, are a lot more relaxed about feeding their children. She eats the same things that we do, and she has been doing so ever since she started eating solids. So far there’s nothing that she really dislikes or severely objects to. But she does have lots of preferences, and a few passions. She loves foods with strong flavors and pronounced spices, and she’s a big meat eater. It’s fascinating to watch her budding food likes, dislikes, and habits. I wonder how much of it reflects her parents habits and preferences?

She goes to nursery school a few days every week, and the food that she is served there actually looks quite good. The menu is posted weekly and the children have things like coffee (more like milk flavored with coffee) or tea with buttered rolls for breakfast. For their tíz órai (ten o’clock snack) there’s juice. It’s all very civilized.* For lunch, the meal usually starts with a soup (which the children amazingly eat nicely by themselves) and often contains some sort of főzelék (a mushy vegetable preparation). Sometimes there’s turkey or chicken breast, and dessert is usually fruit. Sometimes there’s even arany galuska (a tasty yeast-raised dessert), and on those days I wish I were eating lunch at the little tables with the children. The only memories I have of school lunches were greenish tinted hamburgers, coke from the vending machine, and awful steak and cheese sandwiches. Needless to say, I almost always brought my own.

Here are some of A.’s current favorites:

She loves fatty spicy sausage (kolbász) and asks for it almost daily. This she probably gets from her Hungarian side. One thing that I am not happy that she likes is virsli (the Hungarian hot dog), which she occasionally eats at school.

Scrambled eggs or pancakes are a few of her favorite meals, and not just at breakfast. She likes big fluffy American style pancakes with maple syrup just as much as she likes the thin, stuffed Hungarian palacsinta.

She loves paprika so much that I now think it is some paprika gene in Hungarians. She sprinkles it on her eggs, but she probably likes it just as much for color as for the flavor. She knows, too, that she should stay away from the hot stuff.

We tend to cook pizza a lot, and A. loves to reach up to the counter and nibble on chunks of raw pizza dough, which she may like more than the pizza itself. She does the same thing with raw cookie and pie dough.

There’s a bakery on the corner of our block and everyday on the walk home from nursery school A. insists on stopping to buy pogacsa (Hungarian savory biscuits) from the “pogacsa néni” inside. She also loves kifli (crescent shaped bread rolls), but that’s probably mainly because her favorite character in her favorite Hungarian book eats kiflis for breakfast.

She absolutely loves túró rudis. But who doesn’t?

She likes plain yogurt better than the flavored kinds. And she loves sour cream, which if it’s on the table, she almost always ends up eating straight from the container with a spoon. In Hungary, sometimes you’ll see people eating a carton of sour cream and a bread roll for lunch, which might be in A.’s future.

She’s big on drinks and her favorites are sparkling mineral water, milk, and orange juice.

She also likes lots of things that you wouldn’t suspect a kid to like (and which many adults don’t even like), such as anchovies, pickles, olives, pate, smoked salmon, goat cheese, and lemons (she likes to suck on them).

Her new favorite fruit is kiwi, which she is often served for dessert at nursery school. Just yesterday she ate three whole kiwis.

* At the nursery school, which is a public one, the children even go to a salt room twice a week for salt therapy, which is supposed to be good for the lungs.

Now is the time for 2008 trend and destination forecasts, and it seems that everyone is putting them out. One interesting one from the relatively new International Culinary Tourism Association cites Hungary (along with neighboring Slovakia) as one of the top “10 Culinary Destinations to watch for 2008″. This is what the list says:

Hungary & Slovakia - Hungarian wines are relatively unknown and most would agree, underrated. Slovakian wines are completely unknown outside the region. Both can be best enjoyed with the hearty and flavorful local cuisines.

The other hot culinary destinations according to the list are: Singapore, Ontario, Barbados, Louisiana, Mexico, Western Cape (South Africa), Argentina, New Zealand, and Sweden. According to many tourism sources, culinary tourism is one of the hottest growing niche sectors. Naturally, I agree that Hungary deserves its place on that list.

If you’re in a place where the BBC’s Olive magazine is available, my article “48 Hours in Budapest” was published in the January issue. In Budapest, it’s available with a very high mark-up (2,550 HUF!) at Bestsellers. The article includes food-themed recommendations for  a Budapest weekend.

A few weeks ago while everyone else was eating turkey we ate wild duck. And as you can see in the photo on the left it was truly a wild duck, which someone had actually hunted and shot. The poor thing was even missing a leg. The duck weighed in at just under a kilo and we bought it on the lower level of the Central Market for astonishingly cheap (around 1,400 HUF). We didn’t plan on buying wild duck that day, and although we’ve cooked plenty of duck, neither of us had ever cooked wild duck before so we didn’t know where to start. After unwrapping the duck and seeing the pellet hole, I wasn’t feeling very prepared for cooking this duck, especially after reading this in one Internet recipe:

Most wild ducks are apt to have the flavor of fish and when on hands of unexperienced cooks are sometimes unpalatable on this account. Before roasting them, parboil them with a small peeled carrot put within each duck. This absorbs the unpleasant taste.

I didn’t like the idea of parboiling it, but I also didn’t want a duck that tasted like fish. But as usual, Hungarian cooks aren’t as fussy when it comes to recipes, so I checked one of my Hungarian cookbooks, Szakácskönyve (Cookbook) by Móra Ferencné and found a perfectly easy recipe. Unlike regular ducks which drip with fat when you roast them, wild ducks are lean and easily dry out, so don’t be stingy with the bacon fat.

Roasted Wild Duck (adapted from Móra Ferencné)

Wash the duck and sprinkle it with salt. Place in a roasting pan and cover with thin slices of szalonna (fatty bacon). Sprinkle thyme and pepper in the cavity of the duck and stuff with an onion half and an apple half. Slice the other half of the onion and add with a half cup of water to the pan. Roast at 350 F (180 C) for about an hour and fifteen minutes (depending on the size of your duck), adding more water as needed.

———————————-

I also made an orange sauce in the pan after the duck was finished cooking by deglazing the pan with the juice of one orange and then adding another chopped orange to the mix.

Published in 1949, the Szakácskönyve is a great basic Hungarian cookbook (if you can understand enough Hungarian to use it). It has recipes for any Hungarian dish or preparation that you’d possibly need. It also includes entertaining illustrations on how to set the tables for the different meals which comes in handy of you want to make sure you’re putting the sugar bowl and the butter container on exactly the right part of the breakfast table. Life in Móra’s house must have been nice, with a lunch table that included six separate glasses.

But like most books from that time it doesn’t include cooking temperatures or times, so you’ve got to have some idea what you’re doing. The recipes are always short, but often too short. Back then, it seems, readers did not have to have cooking techniques explained to them. Everyone knew how to make a roux and a butter cream without step-by-step instructions. Móra Ferencné (or Mrs. Frank Móra) was the wife of a famous Hungarian writer, known for his children’s books. Móra néni was such a perfectionist, according to her granddaughter who happens to live in the village where my husband grew up, that she’d throw any dish that didn’t turn out well onto the kitchen floor. Marta néni, the grand daughter, sweetly wanted to sign our copy of the book after finding out that we use it.

Our duck turned out great–we didn’t have to throw it on the floor–and it tasted nothing like fish. If you try this recipe yourself, remember to watch out for the pellet while you’re eating, especially if you’re feeding it to small children.

Yesterday the New York Times published its “53 Places to Go in 2008” list and named Tokaj as number 52. Tokaj, Hungary’s most famed wine region, also happens to be my favorite part of the country. Not only does it turn out great white wines, but I think it of one of the most beautiful areas of Hungary.  Its centuries old stone wine cellars are covered in black “noble mold” and some stretch back several kilometers, forming virtual streets and mazes under the ground. Tokaj joins other destinations like Laos (number 1) and Libya (number 10) and the Northwest Passage (number 35) and Bogota (number 21). Prague is also on there at number 14.

The Times writes:

Backpacking wine tours? The Hungarian wine region of Tokaj is regaining its reputation for quality whites, especially wheat-colored dessert wines made from furmint grapes. The region’s winemaking was reborn after the fall of Communism. The Grof Degenfeld, housed in an old castle, even has a plush hotel that offers two-day packages starting at 191 euros, or $283 at $1.50 to the euro.

But backpacking wine tours? Since when do backpackers book 2 day packages at plush hotels for $283? The Grof Degenfeld hotel and winery are lovely and elegant, by the way, and so is the more affordable Grof Degenfeld panzió in the center of Tokaj. But even there you’re not likely to see any backpacking wine drinkers.

I’m always on the lookout for new local products and Bortársasag* is often a good source for interesting products made by local wine makers (I’ve also been meaning to try their wine-stuffed chocolates for awhile). Recently they released verjus—which is the pressed, unfermented juice of unripe grapes—made by Austrian winemaker Franz Weninger. It’s a condiment that was commonly used in the 16th century, fell out of style, and then began reappearing in dishes in American high-end restaurants in recent years. Now, Weninger (who has wineries in Sopron and Villány as well as Austria) has begun producing it in Hungary for the first time this year.

This picture doesn’t do justice to the pretty bright yellow color of the stuff (it’s hard to take decent photos when it gets dark at 4pm), which can be used as a meat tenderizer, in vinaigrettes, in sauces, or as a marinade. It’s sour and acidic, and can often be used for cooking in place of lemon juice. I had good intentions of researching some old recipes to find unique ways of using this little bottle of verjus, but it just ended up sitting around in my kitchen for weeks until I finally just dumped a few big splashes on two whole trouts which were sauteing in my cast iron skillet at the last minute, just before they were ready. It turned out to be some of the best trout that I’ve had in awhile, and I’ve chugged verjus on fish several times since then with equally difficult results. Maybe someday I’ll get around to figuring out something more creative to do with it, although at just 200 ml, this tiny bottle is going fast. It’s surprising that more wine makers don’t release simple products like this. How hard would it be for someone to make some good wine vinegar in Hungary?

* For those outside of Hungary, Bortársasag is one of Hungary’s top wine shops with locations around the country. The verjus is 990 HUF a bottle.

If you’re in New York and are wondering where to head for Hungarian and Austrian fare, check out Gridskipper’s New York Tastes of Eastern Europe piece which has a handy run-down of the city’s options.

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?