Come hungry…VERY hungry…
Though with 20-20 hindsight it’s easy to regret not starting a Budapest stay with the Taste Hungary Food Tour, one plus of waiting a bit is likely having walked past the enormous Nagyscsarnok market a few times as you move from Point A to Point B clicking off the tourist must-see list. As soon as you walk in, the already massive train station-like structure seems bigger still, exploding with sights and smells.
It’s where you’ll meet your Taste Hungary docent, in our case tour guide Anna S. Virányi—warm, personable, and most of all knowledgeable. Anna seems, by this writer’s lights, to be one of those rare people who are at ease with all, and somehow in her presence the daunting supersized market seems immediately manageable.
Better, a first stop is to share an iconic Hungarian hangover remedy, Unicum, while munching on fry breads, lángos --one topped with sour cream and cheese and another with garlic. Ignore that nagging thought that you are ingesting your total caloric intake for the day..ignore it!
Our table of five sampled two types of Unicum—one sweet and very clearly born with lots of plum and licorice flavors, and the other seeming, at least to this picky drinker, to be a contender for a new icky cough syrup flavor.
Though the Zwack Museum might make similar mistakes, anyone who has taken the Coca-Cola tour in Atlanta with its over-the-top buildup to let you into the secret recipe vault, might take a page from Anna’s understated briefing instead. She flashes the picture of the movie star handsome scion of the family, Sandor Zwack, on her I-pad, and then recounts how both his family and secret recipe survived the twists and turns of Budapest history. We learn that 22% of Budapest was Jewish before the Nazis, with many of these Jewish families coming from the upper strata of Budapest society. This specific Jewish family was able to survive the Nazis because the Swedish embassy took them in and kept them alive through the war. When the Communists took over , the Zwacks moved to America, save one uncle who stayed behind to work in the family factory as a line worker, feeding the Communist regime the wrong recipe for the secret brew.
We’re fascinated and wow, we’re already getting full.
Taste Hungary Teaches History-- in a Tasty Way
It’s early in the tour and yet Anna has already managed to start populating the Cliff notes of Hungary’s long history into the rubrics of the Hungarian recipe book in our mind that we will take home. Consider stuffed cabbage—it’s a reflection of Germanic and Turkish (Ottoman) cultures meeting. Paprika, which devotees of hot food will likely find not-so-hot, came to Hungary via Spanish culture and trade during Ottoman times. And because the Ottomans’ food proscriptions mandated that they not touch the locals’ pigs, pork dishes came to predominate. The garlic on your bread breakfast? That’s because Italy is a neighbor and good things travel. Goulash, we learn means ‘cowboy’, and was born as the comfort food of Hungary’s herders. (Side note: Hungarian films about cowboys are called “Easterns”, not “Westerns’ and indeed there is also a Spaghetti Eastern variant!)
Because we are Americans in the time of Trump, Anna had to manage our anxious political queries too. OMG! Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Trump, had run on the slogan of “Make Hungary Great Again!” ten years ago? Anna seemed well-versed in American political issues, knowing to share that her health care costs are 14% of her income that overall she is flat taxed at a rate of 46- 48%. (Her health care though can include ample massage and other spa treatments as needed.) Maternity leave? three years but the way in which that cuts into your career development doesn’t make it much of a plus, she reports.
Pickles galore too—which you sample learning which ones are rare treats and which most families would make as a matter of course. We have moved to the market’s basement where all the smelly food is to be found and where we get a quick recipe for the iconic fish soup that is a Xmas feast tradition.
So much food! Lunch? Sausages, sausages and sausages, including horsemeat, be forewarned. Make room for more? Anna plies you with sweets to open up that hidden stomach you have, she explains. We visit an artisanal chocolate shop that we learn was voted one of the world’s top ten.
How especially fun toward the end of the food tour to visit Café Central to experience the café culture tracing back to the late 19th Century and to shake your head at wonder why anyone wants to pay triple at the nearby Starbucks for brew not even half as good—and certainly without the pastry flair. (Tip: They are open for breakfast—a variety of sumptuous offerings—and they do have WiFi.)
