Hungarian cuisine
[3] Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, bread, and dairy products.
Hungarian cuisine is mostly continental Central European, with some elements from Eastern Europe such as the use of poppy, and the popularity of kefir and quark.
[5] Typical Hungarian food is heavy on dairy and meats, similar to that of neighboring Czech and Slovak cuisines.
Chicken, pork and beef are common, while turkey, duck, lamb, fish and game meats are mostly eaten on special occasions.
Numerous other types of baked goods, such as buns and pastries both salty and sweet, often creatively filled, have proliferated in recent years.
In some old-fashioned dishes, fruits such as plums and apricots are cooked with meat or in piquant sauces/stuffings for game, roasts and other cuts.
Other characteristics of Hungarian cuisine are the soups, casseroles, desserts, and pastries and stuffed crêpes (palacsinta), with fierce rivalries between regional variations on the same dish (such as the Hungarian hot fish soup called fisherman's soup or halászlé, cooked differently on the banks of Hungary's two main rivers: the Danube and the Tisza), palacsinta (pancakes served flambéed in dark chocolate sauce filled with ground walnuts) and Dobos cake (layered sponge cake, with chocolate buttercream filling and topped with a thin layer of crunchy caramel).
These are accompanied with bread and fresh vegetables, are often called 'cold dish', and mainly consumed for breakfast or dinner, but sometimes offered as starter in restaurants.
The most common is savanyú káposzta (lit: sour-cabbage, sauerkraut) and soured peppers, gherkins, but a mix of cauliflower, green tomatoes, baby water melon, and other vegetables is also frequent.
Herbs are also a key component of Hungarian cuisine, with dill, bay leaf, marjoram, and parsley being the most common.
Even herbs such as thyme, patience dock, mint and chives can also be component of some dishes, although considerably less frequently than those mentioned before.
"cattleman's (meal)"),[8] pörkölt stew and the spicy fisherman's soup called halászlé are all traditionally cooked over the open fire in a bogrács (or cauldron).
In the 15th century, King Matthias Corvinus[9][10] and his Neapolitan wife Beatrice, influenced by Renaissance culture, introduced new ingredients such as sweet chestnut and spices such as garlic, ginger, mace, saffron and nutmeg,[11] onion and the use of fruits in stuffings or cooked with meat.
[13] At that time and later, considerable numbers of Saxons (a German ethnic group), Armenians, Italians, Jews, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks settled in the Hungarian basin and in Transylvania, also contributing with different new dishes.
All told, modern Hungarian cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Uralic components mixed with West Slavic, Balkan, Austrian, and German.
The food of Hungary can be considered a melting pot of the continent, with a culinary base formed from its own, original Magyar cuisine.
Because of the Habsburg ruling class making it difficult for the kingdom to do industrial work, the country's small producer markets became prominent, and were therefore also called the monarchy's larder.
Some types of meat that were commonly eaten in the past (such as beef tongue, disznósajt (head cheese) or véres hurka (similar to black pudding) are now more associated with the countryside.
For many, breakfast is a cup of milk, tea or coffee with pastries, a bun, a kifli or a strudel[8] with jam or honey, or cereal, such as muesli and perhaps fruit.
Children can have rice pudding (tejberizs) or semolina cream (tejbegríz) for breakfast topped with cocoa powder and sugar or with fruit syrup.
Salad is typically served with meat dishes, made of lettuce with tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, or some pickled variant of them.
Some people and children eat a light meal in the afternoon, called uzsonna, usually an open sandwich, pastry, slice of cake or fruit.
It may either be a lunch-type meal, with multiple courses and the same foods one would serve for lunch, or it could be the same as a traditional Hungarian breakfast, with bread, cold cuts, cheeses, tomatoes and peppers as described above.
In some households, Lentil stew, also known as 'Lencse Fozelek', is consumed to bring good luck and health in the upcoming years.
On New Year's Eve (Szilveszter), Hungarians traditionally celebrate with virsli (Vienna sausage) and lentil soup.
The families and their friends have the Mom and daughter prepare meals such as Smoked Ham with boiled eggs and small sandwiches and drinks quite commonly to have palinka on the table and then wait for Fathers and sons to arrive and say a poem (Husvéti Vers) and then spray on their hair with a perfume.
In Szabolcs County make a special sweet yellow cheese, Sárgatúró, made with quark (túró) and eggs.
Hungarian wine dates back to at least Roman times, and that history reflects the country's position between the West Slavs and the Germanic peoples.
Hungary's most notable liquors are Unicum, a herbal bitters, and Pálinka, a range of fruit brandies (plum, apricot and pear are popular).
[citation needed] The elderberry (bodza), currant, wild strawberry (szamóca), viola (plant) (ibolya), lavender and raspberry (málna) szörp (a concentrate created from sugar and fruits or flowers) is also common.
