 Fish soup in 25 words or less: The skimpy details in some Hungarian cookbooks makes them hard to follow, even if you’re a Hungarian. |
Since I’ve been living in Budapest I’ve acquired a pretty good sized collection of Hungarian cookbooks. I just can’t resist buying new (rather, new-used) cookbooks, even if they’re in Hungarian (which I am far from fluent in, although I do have culinary Hungarian down). The Hungarian cookbooks I like best are the classic ones which call for generous quantities of smoked pork fat rather than sunflower oil, and butter rather than margarine.
When I first started buying old Hungarian cookbooks, I just liked to look at them, to read the names of old dishes, many of which I had never heard of. They really made it clear to me how expansive Hungarian cuisine is, and how much more there is than what is typically served in restaurants. It only occurred to me later that maybe I should try to actually use the recipes. The recipes look deceptively simple: short lists of ingredients and instructions that are just a few lines long. My plan was to translate a few recipes and start baking delicious sounding things like méheskenyér and Rozalinda… whatever they were.
Anxious to start my Hungarian baking binge, I looked at my recipes more carefully. Being already in the very un-American habit of using a kitchen scale, the fact that most measurements were indicated by weight was not a problem – even when it was in the unfamiliar decagram. But there seemed to be no general consensus on the size of a teaspoon or a tablespoon. Home cooks in Hungary, I was told, use actual “tea spoons,” “coffee spoons” and “table spoons” rather than the handy set of measuring spoons that I was used to cooking with. There were also quantities such as késhegynyi, szem, csomó, csomag, diónyi, and tojásnyi to figure out.
 It’s easy, as long as you have a package of Váncz-brand baking powder in your kitchen left over from 1935. |
Translating these quantities into more familiar and easily accessible terms is not always easy. The cute little red cookbook from 1936 published by the Váncza baking powder company, for example, told me to use things like half a packet of vanilla sugar, a packet of baking powder, a tábla of chocolate, and a packet of yeast. But are the packets and the bars the same size today as they were more than seven decades ago? If it were a stew I could experiment, but you can’t fix a cake if it’s no good after it’s already baked.
I had been so happy when I got a stove with actual temperatures on it (my first one just had gas marks). I even had a list of Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions and tacked up on my refrigerator, which came in handy for American recipes. But these old recipes didn’t give temperatures or cooking times. Why should they? Ovens didn’t have marks for precise temperatures back then. And even if they did, the people cooking these dishes probably did not need to be told exactly how many minutes to cook something. They could see with their eyes and feel with their hands just exactly when something was done. And they knew exactly how things were supposed to taste, so they did not need precise measurements. The recipes, it seems, were probably just meant to be used as guidelines.
 A pinch of this, a knife-tip of that, who cares – just don’t forget to line up the five forks exactly right. |
Things were obviously different in the days when many of these recipes were written. They were written for people who knew what they were doing in the kitchen more than we do today. They were for people who learned the cooking and baking basics from their mothers, and practiced the techniques over and over again with their own hands. They knew how the pogácsa dough should feel when they were kneading it, and what the onions should look like when they were sautéing, and when to add the paprika to a roux. These recipes definitely weren’t written for today’s generation of home cooks who learn how to make recipes from television cooking shows and are convinced that they need the latest esoteric ingredient, even though they don’t know the kitchen basics like how to chop an onion correctly or how yeast works.
One thing that I love about these old Hungarian cookbooks is when they give lifestyle advice. One of my favorite cookbooks is the late Elek Magyar’s The Gourmet’s Cookbook, a 605-page tome which includes recipes for every imaginable Hungarian dish. Magyar was a journalist who admittedly did not cook, but collected recipes from those who did. In his introduction, entitled “The Gourmet’s Art,” he writes: “Eating and drinking are necessities of life, and like our other activities we should try and do them with grace. Those who select their food personally and with care are obviously further from their animal origins than those who eat whatever is put before them without discrimination, simply to fill their bellies. There are fine distinctions in flavours just as there are in colours and sounds, and those who try to find them cannot be barbarians.” Whew, that’s re-assuring.
He continues: “People of refined taste do not emphasize the quantity but the quality, the variety of food and the methods of cooking… those who pay attention to the preparation of their food will certainly not feel the pressure of overeating, like those who do not care if their meat is cooked in rancid fat or their bread has not risen properly.” So, who says that Hungarian food is all about the quantity?
 It turns out learning Hungarian was the easy part. |
Meals weren’t meant to be made in 30 minutes in the era when many of these recipes were written, which could be one reason that they generally don’t make any mention of time. For the most part, these recipes also have no introductions. After all what could the author say about a csirkepaprikás or a fánk that readers did not already know? Recipes were meant to be practical guides, not bedside reading material. Recipe writers today assume that their readers are culinary illiterates by explaining methods and instructions in the simplest terms and never assuming that their readers know even the simplest of cooking terms or methods. The authors of many of the recipes which we will be publishing here assumed the opposite: that their readers were comfortable in the kitchen, and that they knew how to make a cake batter or a bread dough with instructions that consisted of little more than a list of ingredients.
We will be starting out our “Treasury of Hungarian Recipes” by publishing mostly classic and older Hungarian recipes (but as our database grows we will also add more modern Hungarian recipes as well). So don’t be surprised if the instructions on these recipes seem a little sparse. Use them as guidelines – as they were meant to be – and take them with a grain of só. We haven’t tested these recipes in the proper sense, although we have been inspired to cook a few of them which sounded particularly good. The recipes here have been translated more or less as they originally appeared (with a few minor style changes). For background on Hungarian ingredients and other food and drink terms, check out our “Encyclopedia of Hungarian Food and Drink.” We wish you luck in the kitchen, and let us know how things turn out by commenting on the recipes.
Bless your heart! I have a few translat
ed cookbooks and am struggling to use
them as you are–but without the benefit of
having real Hungarians around me. I have
Venesz,Lang and Pogany-Bennett, plus a
few small ones. My principle interest is
pastry and baked goods. A book I use a
lot is “Kaffeehaus” by Rick Rodgers, re-
maindered a few years ago. His recipes
for Rigo Janci and Ludlab torte, Dobos
torte were judged excellent by a genuine
Hungarian. Good Luck!
Great. Please email me the titles of thyese classical cookbooks so that I can ask my sister in Hungary to start shopping. Tks.
Well, at least I’m not the only one scratching my head over some of those old recipes. One that looks like a particularly tasty pastry begins with the instruction to start with a really hot fire.
I asked my relatives who remember cooking on wood stoves what that means. I never could get a good explanation. I’m just not confident enough to take a wild guess with the oven temp. With all the effort that’d be involved in the prep, I could see me becoming very angry when the recipe would fail.
OH, this is so cool! I am Hungarian, and it is just so funny to read about these things which are obvious for me and can mean such a problem to others (like quantities:)
I hope you guys will manage in any case! Good luck!
I have a copy of “The Hungarian Cookbook” published by the Culinary Arts Institute in Chicago, IL, illustrated by Kay Lovelace, with a 1954/1955 copyright. The pages inside are in good condition, but the front and back covers are pretty beat up. It is going to be tossed unless someone would like to have it. Please e-mail me if interested.
For Jennifer, who wrote:
>I have a copy of “The Hungarian Cookbook” >published by the Culinary Arts Institute in >Chicago, IL, illustrated by Kay Lovelace, with a >1954/1955 copyright. The pages inside are in >good condition, but the front and back covers >are pretty beat up. It is going to be tossed >unless someone would like to have it. Please e->mail me if interested.
>Jennifer at April 21, 2009 11:35 PM
I am interested, but can’t figure out how I find out what your email address is. Can you email me at: ojosdegatos@gmail.com and let me know if you still have this cookbook? I would love to have it!!!
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