Hungarian Food

I was on holiday in Hungary visiting my family. Here are a few examples of my country's culinary traditions.

• In old days, a piece of lard (pork fat) was usually consumed with every meal. The picture below is a chunk of Mangalica (a kind of pork) lard:

• My great-grandmother's breakfast was lard and eggs every morning. She happily and healthily lived in her 90's.

• Bread was very coarse and the crust difficult to chew. It was eaten with some kind of fatty food: pork fat, lard, liver pate etc.

• Every family had a container of animal (pork, duck, goose) used to fry food, and it was used in abundance. Meat, organ meat and even potatoes were fried in fat. In many villages vegetable oils were unheard of just a few decades ago.

• I have found a lot of recipes with cream or sour cream. An example: vegetable soup served with sour cream and fried lard on the side:

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• When sick, bone broth is the recommended food, considered to be particularly healing.

• Sugar was very rare a few decades ago. Honey was seasonal and very rare.

• Organ neat is regularly consumed and still served in restaurants:

Here is a restaurant dish: fried veal tendon in batter, served with mayonnaise and a vegetable stew for side-dish (portions are usually very big):

Below is a dish I prepared: pork brain, fried in duck fat (salt and pepper), with fried vegetables (parsnip, celery, broccoli, mushrooms):