Cooking like a local in Hungary

Wow, my husband and I had our very first argument as a young couple over a chicken.
That's how Hungarians are about food. Doesn't matter how intelligent, educated or nice they are, mess with their paprika dishes the wrong way and God save you, tip ear plugs do come in handy sometimes...
My mother bought me a Hungarian cooking book when she realized I was serious about my husband.
She was riased with her Hungarian SIL baby-sitting her and mom being around her SIL's parents who also sat my mom in the 1920's. She ate many meals and watched them cooking as she grew up. Her mother was also a cook for a wealthy family during this time so watching and learning are the first step to learn how it is done.
I confess, my pie crusts taste great but don't look so good, never got it down to a art like some people do.
She told me right away to learn a few HU dishes if I wanted to stay married.
Told me which is the truth if old fashioned that the way to a HU 's heart is through food.
Even my husband who used to be as skinny as a rock star was fussy as all get out about dinner. To look at him you'd think food was not a big deal, it was and still is.
Ok, can write a book on HU foods but first thing is to get down the delicate onion base before doing anything else.
Chopping the onions evenly, using enough oil to melt the onions without them swimming in oil is probably the base thing to get down before doing anything else.
The white sauce is another one to learn to do, light for veggies and dark for soups like bab leves, bean soup. Never burn the paprika, if you do you must start all over again with the onions.
Maybe ask a HU friend to get you started, saves allot of pain and suffering by serving dishes that have a burnt after taste because the paprika was put in at the wrong time.
Not impossible to learn to cook Hungarian but one must take the extra time and energy to go the extra mile, no short cuts with HU cooking.  Lots of sauces and sour cream but if the basic onion cooked until just glassy but not brown is off then the whole dish is bad.
You can take the most simple ingredients with Hu food and make them taste fantastic if you get the onion mix down the right way first.
Can't rush Hungarian cooking, they let the food simmer forever to bring out the flavors.
Not the sort of cooking you can put on the stove and walk away from, if it sticks or burns it's over with. Lots of stirring, just enjoy a few glasses of wine while your cooking so the waiting isn't so hard, almost like watching water come to a boil at times, not for the faint hearted to cook a HU meal.
Maybe start out with making a HU vinegar salad dressing with cucumbers and see how that goes.
Took me years to get some of my dishes down the right way, even then one cabbage or apple may not be as fresh or sweet as the last time I made the same dish, have to adjust salt, sugar etc. to the quality of the foods you're working with. No microwave ovens should be used, just old fashioned sweating over a hot stove.

Priscilla wrote:

Please share what it's like cooking like a local in Hungary.

Typically involves adding too much salt, fat/lard or oil..... Sorry, to have to say this, but that is how many cook here "traditionally".

Priscilla wrote:

What are some of the most popular local dishes that are easy to prepare?

On the more healthy side, any of the sour salads are very easy to make, and are quite tasty. Hungarian cucumber salad is probably the most famous (it is easy to search for recipes). I also like sour tomato salad (the same basic recipe as cucumber salad, but substitute tomatoes for cucumbers).

Priscilla wrote:

What are the most common ingredients used in dishes in Hungary? Where can you purchase them?

Across all types of dishes, that would probably be Hungarian paprika and teföl. You can find them everywhere here.

Priscilla wrote:

Is there a specific technique or a secret ingredient to master the local cuisine?

Add Hungarian paprika to everything.... 

I personally love the cold dishes served here, French salads, casino eggs, potato salads and cold fruit soups.
My MIL used to serve a "Hungarian Smear" for breakfast which was enough food for the entire day. Different cheeses, cold cuts, sausages, fresh bread and butter, tomatoes and peppers straight out of her garden, tea, espresso, you name it and she would make it.
When we first arrived in Hungary in 1978 after a very long train ride from Frankfurt, Germany, my MIL had bags of food with her on arrival to her flat. Casino eggs, French salad, bread, potato salad and a few other items. She thought we might want a quick snack after the long trip.
There used to be a Soviet brand of deli's all around Budapest, I think they were called, "The Golden Bear". WOWIE, a deli lovers heaven for sure.
All sorts of deli items, a couple dozen different types of salads.
Mushroom salads, fish salads, corn, so many lovely items I can't even think about it without drooling on myself.
I wish I could find a deli such as that now, it was mostly take out but they also had a standing counter to enjoy your snacks.
In 1986 on my second visit over there was a huge shop located on Vaci Utca which was called,"American Burger" tried it because I had to.
It was actually very terrible, they used tomato as a sub. for catsup and cabbage instead of lettuce.
Hungarian food is wonderful when they stick to what they know how to make.
Soups are big in Hungary ,I love Hungarian food but some people do get tired of the paprika all the time.
Not me, think it's in my blood by now.
One thing though, if offered a meal or snack in Hungary you should take it or your host will feel really bad. After a household job is finished for the day one should offer a handyman a drink of wine, palinka or a beer, even offer them a meal during the working hours.
This is the custom here. Not everyone does this in other countries, I grew up with my mom offering lunch to any workers around the house and to always at least offer a drink of water or something to anyone who entered our home. That is the same sort of custom here in Hungary, a shame on the house if they don't offer something to eat or drink.
In the US one would hardly ever offer a alcohol drink to a workman but in Hungary after the job is done for the day, it is almost expected.
A side note: people during the US depression years had many people knocking at the door offering to work around the house. My super poor granny who was very ill and about dying herself had little money to  offer a homeless person, there were way too many of them. In any case she always made them a snack to take away from her door. In those days the "homeless" would mark a house with a bit of paint or chalk on the sidewalk in front of the house. This was their code to let others know they could get a meal from that home. Perhaps that's why my mom always forced anyone in her home to eat something or take it with them.

I don't particularly like many hungarian dishes because they are often based around chicken and pork. but I do like the cucumber salad which is very easy to make. I love the mixed bean stew and have tried the Hungarian version.
I have a very good recipe for a vegetarian goulash and have made that once or twice. Generally I now probably use much  more  paprika in my cooking than I ever did. I cook with less salt and less fat than Hungarians and I eat more of a Mediterranean style diet.
Some of the cakes are totally lovely but if I bake cakes or puddings  I tend to make more English style eg apple crumble,  apple pie, chocolate and orange slab cake or real fruit cake. But I eat hungarian cakes when I am out.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

..... After a household job is finished for the day one should offer a handyman a drink of wine, palinka or a beer, even offer them a meal during the working hours.
This is the custom here. Not everyone does this in other countries, I grew up with my mom offering lunch to any workers around the house and to always at least offer a drink of water or something to anyone who entered our home. That is the same sort of custom here in Hungary, a shame on the house if they don't offer something to eat or drink.
In the US one would hardly ever offer a alcohol drink to a workman but in Hungary after the job is done for the day, it is almost expected.....

We don't offer alcohol to them any more.  We used to do that. Tea or coffee we do for sure, but no booze now.  These days we  just give them enough of a tip to buy their own drink on the way home. Easier for them and for us!

Oh and yes, you cannot beat a bit of paprika or a slice of pepper with everything!

My husbands step-bro came to the US to remodel our home.
He got a free trip to the US during commie days, we paid him a rate of $10. a hour which was huge for him back in the 80's.
He had 100% free room and board, took him to Mexico, Disneyland, San Diego, Las Vegas and Sea World sight seeing all over S. Ca. etc. He was in the states for 2 month time and only worked about 4 to 5 weeks in total, had access to a pool A/C and a private room with private bath.
Only thing was he loved his booze, had to monitor him during working hours, Had enough when my neighbor called me up telling me there was a man almost falling off a ladder outside my house.
Didn't need to add a hospital bill on top of it all.
He was limited to a 12 pack of beer, 2 packs of cigs and a jug of wine per day, dang that was getting pricey, Back in those days I almost never touched alcohol at all. Wish someone in HU had warned us that his drinking was out of control. He used to work on big projects in Russia and suppose those long winters with the boyz taught him how to guzzle it down.Alcohol I mean...
We thought we could get our home fixed up and also help someone in our family by paying him. Cost us about the same as hiring a local person in the end and the stress was getting to me, he was in simple terms, a pain in the bottom.
We had a library room with a cabinet where we kept  a dozen or so bottles of decent hard liquor in case we had company.
Ok, so he finally left (thankfully) back to HU.
A few weeks later friends came over and we were showing off our house.
We went to offer them a glass of whiskey and dang it if every single bottle was dry to the bone.
Hadn't thought he would of raided the booze cabinet on top of all that other liquid.
Yes, maybe it's best to not offer booze to workers or at least wait until they are done and only give them a tiny bit so they get home in one piece.
In the US if you offer booze to someone and they have a accident, you can be sued for giving them booze, could even lose your house in a law suit.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
A few weeks later friends came over and we were showing off our house.
We went to offer them a glass of whiskey and dang it if every single bottle was dry to the bone.
Hadn't thought he would of raided the booze cabinet on top of all that other liquid.
Yes, maybe it's best to not offer booze to workers or at least wait until they are done and only give them a tiny bit so they get home in one piece.
In the US if you offer booze to someone and they have a accident, you can be sued for giving them booze, could even lose your house in a law suit.

In the mid 1990s, I used to park my car near Kiraly utca and walk to Deak for work and I passed the pub each morning about 0800h. 

It was always full of people having a shot or two or three of Palinka before going to work. 

I always had my fingers crossed those people weren't going to be operating heavy machinery that day! 

I was also an office elsewhere in HU and remember people sitting with "glasses of water" all day in their offices.   There's no way to hide that smell of too much booze on a person.

On the other hand, when I was working in Munich, we used to have a beer at the office meeting.  It wasn't considered alcohol but a beverage like tea  or coffee.  There, you could even get it out of the drinks machine along with Coke, Fanta etc.  But it was very civilised. I never saw anyone drunk at work.

yes palinka is lethal. especially if you are not Hungarian !.
In the countryside people often cook outside. Not just barbeques but outdoor ovens fires and stews cooked on stands. Sorry l don't know what they are called.
I love being invited, and the food is a lot better than festivals but I rarely have enough people around to do one myself.
In my friends village people often invite all the neighbours but we have less people living in the forest to invite.

anns wrote:

Not just barbeques but outdoor ovens fires and stews cooked on stands. Sorry l don't know what they are called.

If you mean the cooking pot suspended over a fire, my understanding is the pot is called a bogrács. and the tripod a bogrács állvány.



My wife and I use that to cook in summer, for just for ourselves. Just use a small pot.

thank you thats exactly what I meant.

klsallee wrote:

anns wrote:

Not just barbeques but outdoor ovens fires and stews cooked on stands. Sorry l don't know what they are called.

If you mean the cooking pot suspended over a fire, my understanding is the pot is called a bogrács. and the tripod a bogrács állvány......My wife and I use that to cook in summer, for just for ourselves. Just use a small pot.

We also have a couple of these sets in different sizes according to numbers.. 

We make gyulasleves (goulash soup) in them when we're in Balaton.

We make a brick base with air gaps in a circle underneath it.  We use different sized wood for fast and slow heating.  One really tasty thing about it is the rather random but nice smokey taste the burning wood imparts.

It's not a very "accurate" thing to use as even the slightest wind blows the fire and smoke around.  I'm considering making a light weight metal smoke hood for it that fits over the tripod.  This would be like a kind of cone over the legs. Then the smoke would go up a couple of lengths of light chimney pipe and be above head height.

It's been a long time since we sat around a campfire grilling bacon slices and letting the dripping melt over a slice of bread.
Wine and bacon, so Hungarian.

The upcoming holiday we will probably make up a Hungarian style dinner .
Not sure we will have it actually on Sunday since I dislike following customs these days, don't enjoy the pagan roots of them although one does have to eat.
Doing the casino eggs, French salad, ham slices and red wine.
Might make up some potato salad just because I like it.
Making my husband make homemade horse radish.
Have it ready for him to make up today, it's getting late making it up and putting it in a tight jar to marinate.
He cracks me up, I had to search out goggles for him to wear because the radish makes his eyes tear up too much to see what he is doing.
You know it's going to be good when you go nearly blind making it up.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
He cracks me up, I had to search out goggles for him to wear because the radish makes his eyes tear up too much to see what he is doing.
You know it's going to be good when you go nearly blind making it up.

Not keen on horseradish.

But I never thought of wearing goggles when cutting up onions. 

Strange thing I've noticed is some onions do it and some don't.

My husband is always thinking of ways to make his life easier by inventing ways of fixing things or going about a project in a new creative way.
First time I saw him wearing goggles and cooking, I thought I was imagining .
No one would believe me but he worked out a version of the "Flobie" years before it was advertised on tv.
That dumb sort of home haircutting system with a flow of air and a razor device to cut your own hair at home.
I  did many, many "repair" jobs in the salon for Flobie victims.
It cut but it was so choppy and uneven, my husband said they went about it the wrong way... We will never know though if his version would of been the million dollar fix or not.
He wanted to hang the person upside down and then use the cutting device...Hmmm.
Back to cooking,horse radish is suppose to be very good for your sinuses.

fluffy2560 wrote:

But I never thought of wearing goggles when cutting up onions.

Yes, that works.

Or one can simply put the onions in the fridge for an 30 to 60 minutes before cutting. Then the volatile compounds which cause the tearing (they actually interact with the water on your eye to form sulfuric acid) will not volatilize, and no tearing.

We made some beans a couple weeks back and for the first time we added some baking soda while cooking.
Not sure if these were faster then normal beans with cook time but with the soda added they got soft really fast.
The taste though was a bit not to our liking, not bad but something tasted strange with the soda added.
They say if you add baking soda to meat it becomes more tender.
My aunt showed my sis and I how to take the "burp" out of cucumbers, she cut off the tip and rubbed it back and forth a few seconds on the cut portion of the cucumber before peeling.
ATM my mouth is drooling, my husband is making his gouslah , all I need to do is make some noodles, sometimes he does spoil me.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

We made some beans a couple weeks back and for the first time we added some baking soda while cooking.
Not sure if these were faster then normal beans with cook time but with the soda added they got soft really fast.
The taste though was a bit not to our liking, not bad but something tasted strange with the soda added.
They say if you add baking soda to meat it becomes more tender..... my husband is making his gouslah , all I need to do is make some noodles, sometimes he does spoil me.

I'd have thought the baking soda would make it salty.

For the noodles, I hope you mean galuska!

I think if you make porkolt, it's quite nice on sliced open baked potato.

Or even on pasta.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

But I never thought of wearing goggles when cutting up onions.

Yes, that works.

Or one can simply put the onions in the fridge for an 30 to 60 minutes before cutting. Then the volatile compounds which cause the tearing (they actually interact with the water on your eye to form sulfuric acid) will not volatilize, and no tearing.

Good tip!

Why is it that some onions make your eyes go and others don't?

I mean, Spring Onions don't do anything and neither do red onions.

Oh yes, galuska, the only sort for a real Hungarian meal.
I used to take forever when I first learned to make these.Used to cut each tiny noodle with a knife and place each one in boiling water .
Now I've learned and have a slotted pan just for making them. Easy Breezy now.

fluffy2560 wrote:

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

But I never thought of wearing goggles when cutting up onions.

Yes, that works.

Or one can simply put the onions in the fridge for an 30 to 60 minutes before cutting. Then the volatile compounds which cause the tearing (they actually interact with the water on your eye to form sulfuric acid) will not volatilize, and no tearing.

Good tip!

Why is it that some onions make your eyes go and others don't?

I mean, Spring Onions don't do anything and neither do red onions.

Onions produce the chemical irritant known as syn-propanethial-S-oxide. It stimulates the eyes' lachrymal glands so they release tears.

It takes a lot of precise chemical reactions, and some vegetables related to onions will produce fewer tears. White, yellow and red onions all have higher concentration of the onion enzyme necessary to create syn-propanethial-S-oxide while sweet onions, green onions and scallions have fewer of the necessary enzymes.

Freeze the onion and soaking the onion in cold water also stops your eyes running.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Oh yes, galuska, the only sort for a real Hungarian meal.
I used to take forever when I first learned to make these.Used to cut each tiny noodle with a knife and place each one in boiling water .
Now I've learned and have a slotted pan just for making them. Easy Breezy now.

We have the slotted thing as well but we still make the galuska with two spoons. 

Mrs Fluffy is the expert and from what I've seen, she Just picks up a small dollop with one spoon and scrape it off the end an appropriate amount into the water with the other spoon.   Seems to work quite well although of course the sizes of the galuska can vary but maybe that's more "authentic"!.

The slotted thing seems more appropriate for smaller sized Spätzle

SimCityAT wrote:

....

Freeze the onion and soaking the onion in cold water also stops your eyes running.

I'm going to try this. 

I find it quite strange some onions do it and some don't - at least to me.  And that's even with onions of the same variety.

I wondered if it was individual specific.  Some people have the sensitivity and others don't.

Wow, I am not that "handy".
Guess growing up and watching her mom and granny or auntie would make it a natural thing.
My DIL cuts up food so pretty and makes the best Tempura but then again she grew up in Japan. Those Nori type rolls she just whips up for a quick snack.
Me being from Cali. makes doing salads my really only natural cooking talent, the rest is just faking it.
Can we consider making a salad cooking though?
My husband didn't know how to cook at all but he couldn't eat American food, hated most of it so he used to write his mom in Hungary and ask her how to fix his fave dishes.
Trial and error but now he is in some ways better at some dishes then his mom was and she was a great cook.

2 spoons does remind me of how my DIL uses chop sticks to cook with. The way she dips items into her batter is like art to me. So relaxed and meditative they way she does things.
I am not a great cook, do my best. Used to be the only girl in the fam who actually enjoyed sitting at the kitchen table as watching my mom bake and cook. Even had my own child's size set of cooking tools and would roll out my own pies etc. when she was baking.
Never mastered it though, mom used to put me in charge of the salad making, couldn't mess that up too badly!
So I can make a ok pie crust but it still never looks pretty,mostly it was fun to watch her cook and bake because she would open up and tell my old stories, that was probably more interesting to me then actually learning to cook.Old fashioned oral history is the best.
In Hawaii they call it,"Talking story".

Those Hungarian Mako onions are really nice,in Hawaii they have their special Maui onions.
Wish sometimes we lived more out in the countryside so we could buy directly from the local farmers.
I don't believe all the food from the city farmers markets are actually from local farms, they probably all buy from the same source and price whatever the market will bare.
Today I was planning on  making my casino eggs, well they are more like English deviled eggs really, even brought over my dry mustard from the US which was made in the UK. Should last me a lifetime since I don't make them very often.
My eggs were always a "hit" at all of our family dinners so hope I haven't lost my touch.
We have a small cured ham which we will cook today, or rather I'll put my husband in charge of it.
Suppose to boil and simmer for one hour with bay leaves, black peppercorn and garlic... Finger crossed it comes out nice because we don't have a dog to feed it to if it tastes terrible.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....
We have a small cured ham which we will cook today, or rather I'll put my husband in charge of it.
Suppose to boil and simmer for one hour with bay leaves, black peppercorn and garlic... Finger crossed it comes out nice because we don't have a dog to feed it to if it tastes terrible.

I hope your ham is not the same as the one I had.

I has some bacon (ok, not ham exactly) the other day and it was so salty it was inedible. 

I've been told the best thing to do is soak it in water to try and get the salt out.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....
We have a small cured ham which we will cook today, or rather I'll put my husband in charge of it.
Suppose to boil and simmer for one hour with bay leaves, black peppercorn and garlic... Finger crossed it comes out nice because we don't have a dog to feed it to if it tastes terrible.

I hope your ham is not the same as the one I had.

I has some bacon (ok, not ham exactly) the other day and it was so salty it was inedible. 

I've been told the best thing to do is soak it in water to try and get the salt out.

Worse than over salted Gamon?

I am not sure I deserve the title of Expat because I have lived here in Hungary for five years. (Despite that, expat.com seems to send me questions in French this evening, which is OK because my French is better than my Hungarian, de nemtom a hulye weboldal, c'est pas mal, c'est pire)

Cooking in Hungary for beginners is first, be poor. Go to the local markets (piac, vasarcsarnok) for your meat, it is better quality, locally produced, and cheaper than from the supermarket. Typical Hungarian cooking, like typical Hungarians, is slow. Get a great big iron pot/cauldron from Hermes. Then add lots of water and bring it to the boil, after that, just throw anything in that you have, and sooner or later you have a porkolt (sorry I can't do the diacritics on my keyboard here).

Cook very slowly, Make for all the family, any local cats and dogs, and so on. Excuse my sarcasm. The best Hungarian cooking is communal, shared. Get the cheapest cuts of sertes (pork) at your market, about half fat to half meat, ribs are good, or felsocomb (lower leg), shoulder (British English) I am not sure how to translate labszar? Neck, any cheap cut of meat from the butcher. Stick to pork for price, as the AFA (VAT, Sales Tax) is only 5% at the moment.

Of course you must add plenty of paprika, one of the few words Hungary has given to the English language. You can get hot or mild depending on your taste, but a quarter kilo (half a pound) will cost you around 1 thousand forint, no more, at the local market. Add onions (hagyma) and garlic if you please, and bulk it out with krumpli/burgonyak (potatoes) and so on,so that the starch thickens the liquid. Slow cooking is the way to make a porkolt. Thicken with a bit of cornflour (buszaliszt will do) about five minutes, as with cornflour mix with water in a kis uveg before you throw it in the sauce to thicken it...

Get a big pot throw it all in, see what happens. It is always good with company. Cheap Hungarian wine is a lot nicer than expensive imports, or domestic Chardonnays etc. Israei Oliver does a good range of Hungarian grape varieties.

For pud, sorry sweet dessert, (nem magyarul "puding", Brit angolul "custard", false friend) a good tokaj furmint. Not the very pricey tokaj, hanem a good furmint is a little like an inferior sherry (I mean that as no insult) and adds a bit of kick and flavour to a pudding sorry dessert.

From the man who knows that "recipe" is Latin for "To take". As In "Take a bit of this, take a bit of that".

In question lachrymosity (excuse my verbosity)
It must be remembered, the acid's released
To one's eyes, please assume, that the vapours resume
Cos their bonds are distended, they're stretched till they cease:

Then they rise, from the sink, and thence (one would think)
Would collect in a round on the ceiling
But from there they condense (and I know this sounds dense)
To arrive at your eyes with a feeling

Like acid's been tasked to invade eyes unmasked
and you're wondering whence they have came
Is it under the sink? Should I wash? Should I blink?
Is it onion or garlic to blame?

So I finish this sonnet now, just as I oughta
Peel cloves and shallots, my dear, under the waughta

"unmasked" would be better than "unasked". But it is my own, off the cuff. (I changed it already, but dunno how to delete this kinda reminder to self. "Show your working" springs to mind...

Get a uncooked joint of gammon, not a smoked joint which is essentially ham (proper ham, not supermarket full-of-water ham). I rather like salt, but I kinda learned, I think it was one of the Roux brothers, I just picked it up accidentally on a TV programme before cookery shows filled the schedules and they were worth watching, never put salt on the table in his restaurant. If customers asked for it, he would gladly supply it, but please taste my food first. I love salt on spuds and stuff, and I am no health freak, I smoke and drink, but let people choose how much salt. When it is essentially to cooking, I will add it, but let people add it "a chacun sa gout", to each their own taste. You can always add it but you can't take it away. Cooking is chemistry. I really think that, chemistry lessons would be much more interesting if you said look the bikker bonnet sorry bicarbonate of soda makes the cake rise because of this and trhat, and the cooking lesson said kinda the reciprocal. It would make things make sense in school, rather than have these islands of knowledge. (And I am a mathematician-ish, the worst of subjects. But cooking is full of maths. Get it out off the blackboard and into the pot.)

In pastry or batter, a tiny bit of salt is essential for the chemical reaction with the protein chains, same in cakes etc. Just a tiny bit, half a teaspoon/2.5mg at the most, and I dare anyone to say "I take that with a pinch of salt". My Hungarian missus swears on bromide salt, (orange packets) but I am not too much a fan of that. And yes, I know, bromide is a salt and so is pottasium chloride ("NoSalt") and so on, but let's not mix the chemical meaning of salt from simple NaCl common table salt. In the shop, avoid the orange packets of salt (bromide) get the white packets (simple NaCl). Or the other way around, depending on your preference.

Sorry Simon, not sure who's been cooking for you or what you've been eating but yuck.
Not to be rude but my step-dad who visited the UK allot in the early 60's said the same thing about English cooking.
Said "they" just throw anything in a pot and boil the life out of it. He was half Irish too...


My grandmother was half English or perhaps Welsh and was the cook for a very wealthy family in the 1930's in Conn. The bro of some Hollywood movie ex.
Most of her dishes were "British" style pies, with a New England touch, those were tasty.
She must of been a fantastic cook because jobs were hard to come by in the 30's.
You need someone to serve you some real Hungarian food not the pig slop you've been describing. Wouldn't even fed that to a dog or a Englishmen! Sorry Mad Dogs and Englishmen came to mind.
A home cooked meal is far better then the slop microwaved over in a local menu shop.

I don't know what Gammon is...

Manufactured foods and Hungarian festival food has a tad too much salt in it for me.
I suppose that adding seasoning is a matter of choice. English food used to be considered to be quite plain and boring but there is far more variety and experimentation now.
I think gammon joints are supposed to be boiled because they are preserved in salt and boiling gets some of the salt out.

SimonTrew wrote:

...
In pastry or batter, a tiny bit of salt is essential for the chemical reaction with the protein chains, same in cakes etc. Just a tiny bit, half a teaspoon/2.5mg at the most, and I dare anyone to say "I take that with a pinch of salt". My Hungarian missus swears on bromide salt, (orange packets) but I am not too much a fan of that. And yes, I know, bromide is a salt and so is potassium chloride ("NoSalt") and so on, but let's not mix the chemical meaning of salt from simple NaCl common table salt. In the shop, avoid the orange packets of salt (bromide) get the white packets (simple NaCl). Or the other way around, depending on your preference.

Jeez, this sounds really weird. 

I'm no chemist, but I learnt in school that potassium bromide was supposedly added to people's tea to reduce their sexual urges?   Typically this was given to prisoners to keep the convicts docile (it may actually be an urban myth). 

But in any case, potassium bromide is a mild sedative and anti-convulsive medication.

Are you sure your wife isn't trying to nobble you?

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....Most of her dishes were "British" style pies, with a New England touch, those were tasty. She must of been a fantastic cook because jobs were hard to come by in the 30's.You need someone to serve you some real Hungarian food not the pig slop you've been describing. Wouldn't even fed that to a dog or a Englishmen! Sorry Mad Dogs and Englishmen came to mind. A home cooked meal is far better then the slop microwaved over in a local menu shop.

I don't know what Gammon is...

Gammon is a thick slice of salted bacon or ham.

As an English person I agree I wouldn't eat what Simon's eating.

I don't have a mad dog to ask.

Simon, I had no idea you had a local cooking for you, your wife, my apologies if I was off track.
We usually eat a mix of HU and American food, more like roasted chicken and fresh steamed veggies with maybe a HU style salad or a side HU style.
Sometimes we eat HU for weeks on end and other weeks we eat international style foods.
Maybe you just don't like paprika dishes.
Salt, we use a few different sorts, I need to find some real Kosher Salt, so far I am not aware of where to find some in Hungary.
In the US it has a stamp on the box stating it is Kosher.
That is suppose to be one of the best types to eat.
We have sea salt,Himalaya salt, and some other salt that looks Kosher but had no stamp on the bag.
If anyone knows where to find stamped as Kosher salt that would be great to know where to find it.
We try to never eat anything that is microwaved, boxed, canned or prepared in any way.
We had that cured ham for the holidays but we never buy that normally.

We had been buying some nice tasting salt from a salt store in the 5th district near the large market hall.
It also has a room with a relaxing area of chairs where people with respiratory issues could pay and sit on a lounge chair and breath in the salt mine air, it was slightly underground.
The salt comes from a mine in Transylvania. Same mine with several different grades of salt and prices.
My husband has read allot on salt and he now thinks that salt isn't so great.
It can get confusing.
As a kid mom always used Morton table salt and so far we are still surviving .
Most of my fam though does have BP issues and thyroid issues.
I am the only one without any of this health problems.
I am also the only one who may be a normal to under weight .
I've always basically stayed the same adult weight, actually I am 10 lbs less then when I was younger but looked even slimmer back then... Youth they can get away with eating almost anything and still feel great in the morning.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....
In the US it has a stamp on the box stating it is Kosher.
That is suppose to be one of the best types to eat.
We have sea salt,Himalaya salt, and some other salt that looks Kosher but had no stamp on the bag.
If anyone knows where to find stamped as Kosher salt that would be great to know where to find it.
We try to never eat anything that is microwaved, boxed, canned or prepared in any way.
We had that cured ham for the holidays but we never buy that normally.

We had been buying some nice tasting salt from a salt store in the 5th district near the large market hall.
It also has a room with a relaxing area of chairs where people with respiratory issues could pay and sit on a lounge chair and breath in the salt mine air, it was slightly underground.
The salt comes from a mine in Transylvania. Same mine with several different grades of salt and prices.
My husband has read allot on salt and he now thinks that salt isn't so great.
It can get confusing.
As a kid mom always used Morton table salt and so far we are still surviving .
Most of my fam though does have BP issues and thyroid issues.
I am the only one without any of this health problems.
I am also the only one who may be a normal to under weight .
I've always basically stayed the same adult weight, actually I am 10 lbs less then when I was younger but looked even slimmer back then... Youth they can get away with eating almost anything and still feel great in the morning.

While I was waiting in a visa queue, I met an Italian guy at a third world airport.  His specialism was Iodised Salt.  Iodine is really important for children and expectant mothers to ensure healthy brain development.  I was quite surprised when he rattled off some statistics on how much better outcomes were from adding small amount of iodine in cooking salt.  In the third world, this is really important whereas mostly in developed countries it's been around for years and almost a non-issue. 

I am not sure about things like Himalayan Salt.  I don't think it's got iodine in it. 

On the other hand, too much salt is bad for your BP as you noted. 

Mrs Fluffy and I have been down a salt mine in Transylvania.  It was a huge place with caverns hollowed out.  Strange air there - almost "thick".  Lots of people doing things like relaxing on loungers or playing table tennis or just hanging out.   I believe some of them were down there for days!

Yeah, the British method of cooking, throw it into a pot and boil it to death.

There was kinda a reason for that of course, that before water was safe to drink, boiling it (or boiling anything) was a way to make it safe, before we knew why i,e. Pasteur et al. This is why I kinda said cooking is chemistry (in this case biology of course), I wish science lessons were mixed withpractical skills more than they are. When you want to double a recipe, you don't always just double everything, and you don't always measure everything, you do it until it is "about right", I remember in Maths we had a whole lecture on "mensuration" which is basically "educated guessing" but we do that in the kitchen all the time.

Same with things like geometry. Everyone is taught how to estimate the height of a tree that is a hundred yards away, or something like that. Which is simple trigonometry but makes no sense because who gives a - how tall the tree is? Yet put them in the carpentry workshop and they are doing geometry like crazy, cutting mitres and aligning joints and stuff, all with just pencil and square like Plato did it, this is equal to that becase I held it there and cut it that way. It may not be 30cm or twelve inches but this one is the same length as that one. The geometry starts to make sense, then. (Or you get a very wobbly table)

I realise that is rather off-topic but I do think that "science" subjects should not be taught as if they were some magic that is different from the everyday world. Cooking brings it all together because yo are using real arithmetic. Woodwork (or metalwork) too. I have known many electricians who know the inverse square law kinda  more than their wife's name but can't settle a grocery bill, because they use the inverse square law every day and I presume their wives settle up the grocer. (Never known a female electrician. I suppose they exist, So I am not sure if that remark is sexist or realistic)

Private Eye once had a pic of "a packet of salt marked "This salt has been produced from the Welsh hills from pure mountain water, 200 million years ago. We have mined it and packed it for your pleasure. Expiration date, 20/03/1986". IT IS SALT. The chemical "salts" like seawater has a lot of magnesium chloride in it, for example, there is about enough magnesium chloride in a cubic metre of British Antlantic seawater to make a bicycle if you can get the magnesium out. (Other seas have different properties, but I am already too much veering on the chemical side.)

It's a myth, by the way, that "salary"  comes (e.g via French "sal") because Roman soldiers were paid in salt. They weren't and it doesn't. We still of course have the expressions "she's worth her salt" etc, but the etymology is very obscure.

So let's have a bit of proper Hungarian cooking. Get a bloody great big pot, from Hermes is the best, to hang over an open fire. Other countries call this a barbecue. Throw a lot of root veg in the bottom, then your pork so that the fat when cooks will drip all over the veg, yum, like English roast potatoes only worse/better. Chuck in labszar that is neck of pork, about 6 pounds three kilos. Add plenty of paprika of course. After about 3 or 4 hours you will have perfect Hungarian gyulas, not British Goulash.

Or if not you have an Irish Stew. What did the garda have for dinner? "Gyulas. Gylas in the name of the law". No no no sorry "Irish Stew in the name of the law".