Hungry for Hungarian Food

June 1, 2015

Hungry for Hungarian Food

We have a relaxed breakfast in our hotel and John catches up on news reading his I-pad. He tells me about the US Supreme Court who ruled 8 to 1 in favor of not discriminating against hiring Muslim women because they wear a headscarf.  I hope this is progress and then realize that I have only seen one woman wearing a headscarf in Budapest and only white-skinned people. I learn that 99% of the people here speak Hungarian while other ethnic groups are primarily from Romania, the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine.  Budapest has one of the most populous Christian communities in Central Europe and the largest Calvinist community on Earth.

Judaism used to be a significant religion in 1920 (23%) but dropped to 0.4% in 2011 due to the Holocaust, secularization and immigration to Israel. A recent census showed that Budapest was the first city to show that the number of people attached to religious groups was below 50%.

 At this breakfast I enjoy the fruits, cheeses, salami, fresh brown bread and unsalted butter.  John loves the omelets, bacon, and especially his three espressos.  I think about food and John tells me it is a shame I ordered buffalo cheese and tomatoes for dinner the night before rather than Hungarian goulash. He tells me he loves the cuisine here because he is always hungry!  This is my opening to suggest we start the day by going to the market. I have always loved spending time in markets seeing the local foods, people and trinkets.

The Great Market Hall 

This is a huge and beautiful building with three floors and a roof covered by steel structures. It has large walkways with tiled floors and ceilings. All the stands look clean and carefully displayed.  I walk around noticing the meats, spices especially paprika, caviar and incredible pastries.  I am salivating for baklava. I wonder what langos are?  There appear to be more sausage stands with hanging paprika and sausage than anything else. 

John talks with the butcher who is sharpening his knives and buys some sausage to munch on along with some fresh tomatoes and strawberries. I think I should have sausage goulash for dinner but would rather have crepes.

We cross the street and I order a coffee at Anna’s café while John checks out the bike rental situation.  After persistent and repetitive attempts to rent bikes we give up when our credit card and phone number are rejected. Clearly renting bikes here is not tourist friendly. We walk to the metro and have a similar problem with getting tickets. Finally we get a ticket only to find out later that the M 2 line is free.

Hungarian Parliamentary Building

This is the amazing building we had seen from the top of the Buda side of the river the night before.  It is the largest building in Hungary and is situated on the River Danube.  It is Gothic style with a central dome, which is Renaissance Revival architecture. Outside there are guards with rifles who exchange places like the guards outside the British Queen’s residence but the men and their attire is not nearly so handsome.  

On the grounds is a 1956 memorial about the Hungarian Revolution. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog this started as a student demonstration against the government of Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet imposed policies. The march ended at the Parliament building where they were fired on by State Security Police.  Despite the failure of the uprising, it was highly influential and foreshadowed the later downfall of Soviet Union. Later that night I email a friend of mine whose husband was in this revolution and later escaped from Hungary to Vienna with $70 and one suitcase. Eventually he was cleared by CIA as a refugee to the US and worked as a psychiatrist. Some of his friends were killed.  I think about how our lives are shaped by the luck of where we were born.

Dohany Synagogue

After a short nap we head out for the synagogue, which is very near our hotel. It looks like a mosque with its dome and Moorish architecture and decorations. It is the largest synagogue in Europe and 2^nd largest in world. 

We are part of a tour here and are told about the Nazis taking over this building as their headquarters after destroying all the traditional Jewish elements of service. 

Outside in the courtyard is a mass grave of Jewish people who died on the gallows here. When the Russians took over they did not support the renovation of this synagogue. In 1997 they were finally able to reopen this building mostly used as a museum. 600,000 Jewish people have died here.  Outside there is a silver memorial tree where each of the leafs has the name of someone who died.

Hungarian Goulash. 

Magyar cuisine is the cuisine characteristic of Hungary named after its primary ethnic group, the Magyars. The mixing of different kinds of meats is a traditional feature of Hungarian cuisine.   Goulash is a stew with gravy or a soup using meat with bones, paprika, vegetables and potatoes or various tiny dumplings or pasta simmered together. It seems that paprika powder is added to many foods, as the color of these stews seem to be mostly organish red. John has asked the concierge to recommend a traditional Hungarian food restaurant for us near the Opera House where we are going after dinner. We eat outside at a table and John orders Chicken Paprikash or goulash. 

He is truly in heaven loving this food and disturbed because I order an Italian vegetarian dish instead of  goulash!  I argue this is Hungarian and he asks the waiter if this could possibly be Hungarian. The waiter laughs saying it is not. But I am hungry so am eating hungarian.

St Stephen's Church

We walk enjoying the mixture of architecture on the way to the Opera House. Rennaisance, Baroque,
Moorish, Roman, and Communist awful dreary condos.

Condos 

Across the street are drab communist era condos ~ what a difference!

Budapest State Opera House. This neo- Renaissance opera house is the largest opera house in Budapest and Hungary.  I have never seen such a richly ornamented building with paintings, sculptures and a vaulted ceiling covered in murals.  We sit 10 rows from the front in the center. There are 4 levels of special boxes that rise around us in a horseshoe shape.  Apparently this auditorium has the third best acoustics in Europe after La Scala in Milan.  We listen to Schumann but as there is no program we are not sure of the name of this chorale music.   There is a huge chorale of singers behind the symphony and then three individual opera singers up front. The singing is translated into English on a screen above our heads. Apparently the story is about someone who falls in love with the wrong person. Whether it is because she had second doubts or he was a questionable character we couldn’t quite discover but he dies in the end, which solves the problem. I didn’t like the music despite it having the best acoustics and found myself constantly dozing off. I think the major challenge for me was not to drool when I feel asleep. John likewise was not entranced with the music so we left at mid break. Perhaps we had had just too much gloomy history on this day to enjoy the opera plot. However, the food was tremendous whether Hungarian or not.