Because of strict controls on the import of foods, Hungarians living in the US and Canada are starved of home-made Hungarian meat products, unless they can ask a friend or relative to play meat mule and smuggle their pungent cargo through US customs. It can be done, but officials are wise to the practice – it is said they even know the words szalonna and kolbász. So it is safer to make your own disznótoros yourself or source cured meat products from a US-based supplier. The number one local smoker is Bende’s Specialty Foods Direct, a Hungarian mail order company that runs its own factory and outlet store in Vernon Hills, just to the north of Chicago. I paid them a visit to find out exactly what is on offer to paprika-starved Hungarian expats.
The Bende brand is known to most Hungarians living in the US, and many more expats from the former eastern bloc – with which Hungary exchanged salami and sausages for Trabants and Ladas. According to Miklós Bende, who runs the business, the small meat processing plant and outlet store in the Chicago sprawl could not live on Hungarian custom alone. Today, nostalgic Czech, Russian, German and Polish immigrants all flock to the remote store, as I found out on a recent visit. In addition to the Bende family’s own products ranging from meat to lecso and jam, the “mini mall” stocks a wide variety of mostly German snacks and treats, as well as a selection of traditional Hungarian brands like Tibi chocolate.
“Bendy’s”, as Miklós Bende calls the company when taking orders on the phone, began life when Miklós the elder, who fled Miskolc in 1956 when his son was just nine years old, took little Miklós to Indiana to buy pigs, before curing and selling them on the street in the Hungarian Burnside enclave of Chicago. It was half a decade later that the butcher’s store on Montrose and Lincoln opened and made the Bende brand famous throughout Chicagoland. But it was only in 1970, following a stint running a motel in Florida, that Miklós and Júlia were convinced by junior to return to Chigaco to set up a Hungarian meat business in earnest. Before long, the family enterprise – all four grandchildren are now involved – had outgrown itself, resulting in the move to the quiet suburb of Vernon Hills.
To simplify logistics, Bende Inc. only manufactures products with a shelf life exceeding a year, such as traditional téli szalámi (winter salami), paprika-rich Csaba salami, spicy kolbász and szalonna (smoked ham comprising an unhealthy amount of delicious fat), for delivery to households and markets throughout the US and Canada. “We leave it up to the Germans produce fresher products, such as párizsi and virsli [Hungary's answer to the Frankfurter],” he explains. And although he insists the methods of curing the meats has not changed, the family has been forced to adhere to increasingly strict USDA standards. for example, this is why products made in the Pick factory in Szeged are not exported to the States, Miklós explains, and why we were unable to take a peak into the the plant itself.
In addition to the burgeoning meat business, Bende also imports a variety of jams, pickled vegetables and their own variety of lecso for sale under the Bende brand. “We return to Tihany once a year. Although doing business in Hungary is not always easy, we have built up close relations with fruit growers and suppliers,” he says.
One thing conspicuously absent from the shelves of the Bende store is a decent selection of liquor, including Unicum and particularly pálinka. Unfortunately, the recent pálinka renaissance in Hungary does not seem to have reached the States, where Zwack‘s Pecsétes brand of fruit brandy is all that is available alongside second-rate staples like Hubertus. Under EU law, the caramel added to the apricot liquor would preclude this product from ever being labeled pálinka, which must be made exclusively from Hungarian fruit without added sugar or flavouring. This is a real shame – the emerging array of high-quality pálinka is even more worthy of international acclaim than Hungary’s top wines. According to Miklós Bende, the Unicum problem lies with Diageo, the international drinks giant with exclusive distribution rights of Zwack products. “Zwack recently launched a new version of Unicum for the American market and so our source of traditional Unicum dried up,” Bende laments, adding that his customers’ complaints are as bitter as the drink itself.
If I am honest, my verdict of Bende’s, both the salami – good but not great – and the store itself, is tarnished by the fact that I was on vacation from the old country. Why get excited about a couple of sticks of szalámi, when there are hundreds to see and smell at any of Budapest’s markets? The same applies to the lacklustre selection of food and wine – although this reflects more on the red tape at US customs than on the Bende empire. Still, it is reassuring to know that Eastern Europeans stranded across the water do have somewhere to turn when salami stocks run low.
Pick was given permission to export to the US on several occasions over the past decade, though the export license was repeatedly withdrawn due to various reasons (Listeria monocytogenes contamination was I think one of the the most recent issues). However, Pick currently IS authorized to export to the US, and was allowed at least between 2003-2004. Google searches reveal US Dept. of Agriculture detailing prior problems in 2001-2002; meaning there had to have been imports from Hungary at the time.
Link: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Hungary_establishments.pdf
Trying to ask Pick why they don’t take advantage of the rather large specialty food market in the USA was not particularly helpful; they are “working on it”. They are in a unique position of having an exportable, high-value and high-quality product, that with effort and time could become a staple of connoisseurs here in the US, not to mention the tens of millions of residents with Central European ancestry. It’s a shame this particularly promising project seems to have no priority for the company — or am I missing something vitally important?
hey csaba you are absolutely right. the only thing wrong is the usual hungarian attitude that could care less what the consumers may want. they do what they will, when they will and if the timing is wrong they blame others. business as usual.
Let me tell you, after the first year without real
salami, you’ll *love* Bende’s. We first saw their
meats at the Sahara Mart in Bloomington, Indiana,
and we’ve been loyal customers ever since. (My wife
is Hungarian.)
Nice article!
I first found out abut Bende’s products when I bought some at Kuby’s in Dallas. Since then I’ve ordered from them on-line and while it’s not as much fun as visiting a market in Hungary, it’s a lot cheaper than going there and trying to smuggle some back in – that’s where I found Eros Pista and Edes Anna I was looking for recently.
Hi Tim
Don’t forget to try the Bende brand of noodles, imported from Hungary, and which contains 8 eggs (8 tojásos) per small bag. That is a lot of protein content and helps make any dish or soup all that more nutritious! No American brand of noodles come close!
Mr. Bende makes an interesting case study for the benefit of Hungary’s business students. Bende got his start during the height of the Cold War, serving immigrant German and Hungarian people european style sausages and products. There was little in the way of exports from Hungary, so he got into the business of making or labeling many of his products.
Twenty years after the regime change of 1989, the producers of Bende’s homeland give him little competition in the American market. As the article above implies, whatever is being made in Hungary does not measure up to the standards required. (If this can’t be done for sausages, then what hope is there for more involved products?) Exports and quality control are management issues. God I hope some of Hungary’s young future business and govt leaders are taking note.
Hungary’s weaknesses continue to be a source of wealth and opportunity for Bende.
@FL:
Sorry, but I think you’ve got this wrong:
It’s 8 eggs to the kilogram …
But we had a discussion on noodles and eggs here some time ago – many italian noodles contain no eggs at all – this is almost a kind of religous issue …
Hi wolfi,
Now that is an important labeling issue. Bende sells their noodles in 250g bags. The packaging does say “8 friss tojással készült” (Made with 8 fresh eggs) If what you say is true the bag is only 2 eggs and not 8! That would be a bit of a “huncutság”!
A closer look at the contents say: “100 g termék tartalmaz: Fehérje 16,5 g” That means 16.5 grams of protein to every 100 g of product. For a 250 g bag, that makes for 41.25g. That’s a lot of protein in a bag of noodles! As I assume most of that protein would have to come from the egg and not the flour, I looked up on average how much grams of protein an egg has, and answers range from 4 to 6g. If we take 5g per egg and divide it into the total protein content of the bag, you do get about 8 eggs. I think Bende is vindicated on this one. Good for him! Hey, here I am doing his PR work for him! He’s got sausages to worry about…
Hello guys, I do have several bags of Tarhonhya in my cupboard (when you order on-line and pay shipping it pays to order lots at a time). I don’t read Hungarian and am not nearly the mathematician you guys are, but I figured out the 8 egg in a bag thing. And you’re right, no brand of American (or I think even Italian) noodle product comes close to this.
Guys, I’m sorry, but I think you got it wrong!
Raw Italian noodles without eggs already contain around 12 % protein, so the difference has to be taken into account …
I just looked at a package of Hungrian noodles with 4 “eggs” and it says “20 % eggs” which comes out at 200g per kilo – and one egg is around 50 g.
8eggs are 400 g – how do you squash that into a package of 250 g of noodles ?
And, yes, they use the whole egg – the mixture needs no extra water …
Hi Wolfi,
The bag noodles are a product dehydrated of most of the water content. Much of the weight of eggs has to be liquid-i.e. water in the yolk, as well as the shell (which is not used). The store sold dry bag product is a lot lighter than if the noodles were fresh made, rolled and cut. You re-hydrate the bag content in boiling water. The bag product is a rich mixture of wheat gluten and egg protein- sans “wasser”.
The Bende content and weight labeling I translated above supports the idea of the equivalent of 8 eggs of protein in that 250g bag. (It was taken from a bag of their tarhonya noodles) Another competing brand of such noodles comes from Kelemen, where there is 32g of protein in a 250g bag, less than the Bende variety, but still a lot of protein/eggs!
I love this discussion, because it brings attention to a good product coming from Hungary. These kind of noodles weigh a lot more than an equivalent sized bag of other brands’ noodles. This type of noodle product is concentrated, and fluffs up considerably in size with water absorbtion.
You know, I’m thinking maybe it is 8 eggs to a kilo. My grandmother used to make something she called rivel soup (or riwel suppe in German). Her father was from the Saarland and her mother from the Eifel, so I don’t know where the soup recipe came from. But it was simply 1 cup (about 125 grams) of flour, a little salt and 1 egg mixed together and then put in a broth or dried and stored for later use. It’s tedious to make and when I saw Tarhonya in Hungary it was almost identical to the rivel she made. I can’t imagine how I’d make it with 4 eggs to 125 grams of flour – or 8 eggs to 250 grams. But maybe you can, and then dry it, or fresh maybe it would be like spaetzle? One way or the other, I do like Bende’s Tarhonya, although I do make my own rivel soup when I miss my grandmother.
Trying again after the system lost several of my posts …
@Tim These things are called “Riebele” by us Swabs. Reiben = to rub, to grate, to grind tells you how they are made. My wife also makes them for some soups, so they seem to be a Hungarian tradition too.
Dear Tim,
I think the confusion here is distinguishing between a recipe for home made noddles, which will be heavier, vs, a dried packaged product. A home recipe can call for any number of eggs. In the case of the Bende product, I’m just going by the representations on their packaging, which I have no reason to believe is fraudulent.
My mother used to make, roll and cut home made soup noodles. The dough, with the eggs mixed in is quite heavy. I doubt she used the Bende level of egg concentration!
Dried packaged versions of german style “spaetzle” noodles are made by Maggi of Germany.
Hi wolfi,
I think the site was having problems again. The Hungarian version of the kind of noodles you were describing to Tim I believe is “nokedli”.
As for the Bende people, theirs is a processed product and may not follow home style recipes. They may be adding more egg than usual in order to distinguish their product and give it more value. According to their labeling, there should be about 41g of dried protein in each 250g bag. That’s a lot of protein.
@FL:
Whatever the Bende family puts in their noodles – they can’t have 8 eggs in a packet of 250 g!
One egg contains in the yolk around 5 g fat and 5 g protein according to wikipedia – that would make 40 g each plus the natural protein in the flour – that’s surely impossible.
I just looked at the description of several packages of noodles while shopping in the Interspar – they have “8 eggs” and “30 – 40 % eggs” which seems correct if you calculate 8 per kilogram.
Hi again wolfi,
The Bende 8 egg recipe had to have weighed a lot more than 250g when it was freshly mixed. (They may indeed start with it weighing 1 kilo.) The confusion I think comes over the drying process, which extracted the moisture and water content in the egg yolk. The product out of the bag is very hard and dry, and swells to 2 to 3 times it’s original volume when cooked in water.
I don’t know how they dry the product prior to packaging, maybe in a hot air oven. That’s what enables the product to keep on a shelf for years, something you could never do with fresh noodles.
This is all worth an inquiry to the manufacturer, and will try to coax a statement out of him. I believe this product to be highly nutritous and that it gives good value compared to it’s competition in noodleland!
@FL:
The situation you describe is the same with all noodles that are industrially manufactured regardless whether they contain eggs like Hungarian and German types or not, like most Italian noodles. I remember that German law limits the amount of water to 13 % – and all noodles weigh about three times as much after cooking …
PS: The German noodles site writes a lot about vegetable protein – it’s not only the protein of the eggs that makes noodles healthy …
Anyway tomorrow my wife and I will make severals lasagnas for christmas – that tastes really good when it’s frozen and reheated in the oven. So she doesn’t have to work too much in the kitchen when we have visitors.
For those who are wondering what’s at stake here- we are talking about a palm sized bag of dried noodles that have the protein equivalent of almost one and a half cans of tuna! (32g protein in tuna can, Bende noddle bag 41g) One bag is enough portion for 6-8 people, due to the enormous swelling following cooking.
I feel that this provides a nutritional boost and value that many of our readers might like to know about. Some may want a good filler at a low price as part of a family meal. Others may prefer to get their protein from a flour/egg mixture than from tuna. I am also proud that this is a Hungarian made product imported by a Hungarian man, which makes it worth all the more discussing on this page.
The controversy is how did all that protein get there, as well as how many eggs could have created it in the end product. If the manufacturer’s representations on the label are true, then he should have nothing to be ashamed about; I hope he will not avoid a chance to make a statment here for us all.
Me again! Last night I mixed a cup (125) grams flour and 4 eggs. It made a thick liquid that I couldn’t work with my hands or roll out, but it worked fine in my spaetzle maker and boiled in water. Made some very good and hearty spaetzle, so I thought maybe they have a process to dry out the tarhonya without boiling it, or a way to process it that I don’t have. Then I started looking at my other pasta products, all US or Mexico produced. I’m not a nutritionist so I was surprised at what I found. In the US all products must have nutritional information per serving, I don’t know how it is for you. One serving is 2 ounces (56 grams) of dry product. Bende Tarhonya = 7 grams protein; plain spaghetti = 7 grams protein; Egg Noodles = 8 grams protein; macaroni = 7 grams protein; flour = 5.6 grams protein; 1 egg = 5.5 to 6.25 grams protein. Interesting. The other thing I noticed is that all the other dry pasta products require only 8 to 10 minutes of cooking, while the Bende Tarhonya requires 17 minutes, according to the package. Nevertheless, I do like the Tarhonya, maybe because it reminds me of my childhood.
@Tim:
Congratulations!
125 g flour plus 4 eggs at 50 g (?) each gives 325 g – so I calculate you had about 12 eggs per kilo of the finished product …
And you said it was a bit “heavy”, so reducing the number of eggs to 8 would maybe be ok.
Anyway, I had a discussion here some time ago whether noodles should contain eggs at all – this is just a matter of taste …
Yesterday I wrote a comment (which was lost due to some technical problems) that Bende also sells other interesting products, some from other countries. The Rösti from Switzerland are well known (Hero is a famous Swiss manufacturer) and also Pfanni products are a household name in Germany – you might try some of their offers …
This discussion also reminded me that we´re hoping to visit one of my wife’s nephews in Nashville next Easter – I shouldn’t forget to ask him and his wife, if they want us to bring any foodstuff from Hungary or Germany. Of course wwe’ll take again lots of “Ritter Sport” chocolate – salami, sausages and ham are not allowed, I know …
Last time in SFO our luggage got a second screening, when the customs inspector saw my wife’s Hungarian passport …
Hi guys,
I just got off the phone with Mr. Bende, and it appears that both wolfi and I are correct. He imports the product from Hungary, where it is mixed according to a conventional recipe proportion. Each bag starts as a mixture of 8 eggs and flour weighing a kilo when fresh; a drying process reduces it to 250g. It’s like comparing fresh meat to beef jerky in terms of weight, where both have the same essentials, except water.
Dear Tim,
Things like the packet noodles are but a convenience. I’m glad to hear you are trying to make your own, as that is what the real die hards do! My mom used to make her own noodles, and there is nothing like it.
As to the cooking time on the Bende noodles, I attribute it to the quality of semolina (the essential part of the wheat kernel). A denser or less processed semolina is richer in the essential nutrients that wheat has and thus takes longer to cook. (The Maggi brand of spaetzle noodles takes over 30 minutes)
@FL and Tim:
I forgot to tell you about that old German saying:
Noodles make you happy!
Yes, it seems there’s some ingredient that helps the production of serotonine, the so called happiness-hormone (if I got it correctly).
So enjoy your meal – but don’t eat too many of those home made noodles – they are very rich …
My wif and I already talked over the holiday menue – we have to go easy on the calories, so every dish will be accompanied by lots of salad.
We already “ordered” a hen from our neighbour – that’ll make a really good soup with a lot of vegetables and some very fine csiga noodles ..”
Farkas László, mystery solved! It does make sense the way he explained it. I wonder, was he surprised to hear your question and the news that a whole discussion was going on about his products? I’m assuming you called from Hungary. I wish you and Wolfi and everyone who visits here a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I’m going to make several French-Canadian Tourtieres (I do most of the cooking at my place) for Christmas, but will make some home-made rivel soup too.
Hi Tim,
He was very nice, and appeared a bit amused and surprised that people would question how many eggs there were in his mixture. He was familiar with the article and the allhungary websites. I told him somebody has to stick up for your product, as these pages are read in over 90 countries!
Merry Christmas to you too!