Taking the metro to work this morning in Budapest, our typical pre-breakfast trance was broken by a poster of the above picture by Hungarian photographer Anna Fabricius, plastered on the wall of various subway cars courtesy of the culture ministry’s “MetróGaléria” program. While it’s certainly a nicely-composed, colorful and cheerful picture, the message it sends is troubling, to say the least.
In a nutshell, anyone who knows anything about cooking knows that if you are frying up a slice of meat like the ones in the picture, you never put the meat and the oil into a cold pan. Because if you do, your rántott szelet (literally “fried slice,” and a staple food for normal Hungarians) will end up a sickly grayish/white color, as opposed to nice and brown. Instead, you’re supposed to put the fat (preferably lard) into the pan, put the pan on the fire, wait for it to heat up, and then add the meat.
Meanwhile, note that the woman is using a giant metal serving fork in conjunction with a Teflon pan, a non-stick no-no if there ever was one. Finally, we seem to recall that it’s not considered wise to feed big slabs of fried meat to children under six months of age. But compared to what she’s doing to those nice-looking pieces of meat, that’s nitpicking.
Ok hello, she is holding her baby near a frying pan. What the hell is wrong with her?
Yeah, but the pan is cold! Which is why those szeletek probably turned out so awful she may have ended up cooking the baby instead.
First you marinate the meat in the baby’s diaper, then cook it in a cold pan. Oriental cooking at its best.
She can put the baby right in the frying pan as some closer attention would make you aware it is not even on the stove.