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Kitchen Memoirs

Sunday Meals, by Nick Tullius

Comparing German & Hungarian Dishes, by Minci Boelckey

My First Recollection of Sausage, by Joe Ritter

 
 

 
 

Comparing German & Hungarian Dishes . . .

Recalled by Minci Boelckey

 

The foods described on the list are familiar to me as they are part of both my Hungarian and German heritage. I base my comments on my southern Hungarian (Bácska) and Bavarian background; people from other parts of Hungary or Germany may interpret things differently. 
 
The cucumber salad with sour cream, paprika, (garlic and a dash of caraway seed) is more Hungarian--the Hungarians like to use sour cream in a number of their dishes.  The dish made with any of the vegetables that you listed is known as főzelék in Hungarian and gemüse in German.  Usually one adds potatoes to the green bean főzelék as well as the zucchini one to give them a bit more body.  Hungarians also make a dried bean, bab főzelék, with smoked pork hock, garlic and paprika which is a very filling dish.  Hungarians tend to add paprika and garlic to these dishes, whereas Germans will usually leave these ingredients out.  The soup with farina/semolina dumplings is also known by both ethnic groups.  The Germans (or at least the Bavarians and Austrians) call it griessnockerlsuppe.  Hungarians call them griesznokedli, which is a Magyarization of the word griessnockerl.  Many Hungarian-German words are used in the everyday language, although they are not part of the official "correct" language.  Griessnockerlsuppe is a real comfort food which I cook if anyone is not feeling well as it has magical healing properties!! 
 
It has been interesting reading the discussions of the many traditional dishes & how their names and ingredients vary depending on the prevailing ethnic influences.

 

 
 

My First Recollection of Sausage

Recalled by Joe Ritter

 

My first recollection of sausage making in our family dates to about 1946 or 1947. My parents, grandparents and various cousins all chipped in for the purchase of several piglets. These were penned, fed and cared for on my grandparent's farm until they reached maturity. Then the pigs were converted mostly into sausage (or "wurst" as my grandparents called it), although I seem to remember pans of Schwartelmagen (head-cheese) as well. Only the older people ate the latter. We kids wouldn't touch it! 

The wurst making was a multi-level activity with Großvater taking charge of seasoning the raw meat mix. He did this very well considering that the mix could not be tasted due to concerns about trichinosis. As a young boy watching all of this, it appeared to me that operating the crank on the sausage extruder would be a lot of fun.  However, after about five minutes on this job, I found it to be a lot of work, not to mention, boring. Upon pleading extreme fatigue, I went down to the creek to do something really interesting like skipping flat stones across the water. 

After all of the mix had been stuffed into many feet of edible cellulose-based casings, a portion of the fresh wurst was divided among the relatives. Later, Großvater smoked the remainder, using a mixture of apple and hickory wood, cut from trees on the farm.  The smoked wurst was also apportioned among the relatives. 

While I preferred the cooked, fresh wurst (usually served with boiled potatoes, and either einbren spinach or einbren sauerkraut), I remember that my mother would make delicious sandwiches of the smoked wurst for my school lunches. These consisted of slices of bread coated on one side with spicy mustard and covered with thin slices of the hard salami-like smoked wurst. I was the envy of my classmates who were making do with store-bought bologna or cheese. 

However, when all was done, someone in the family, probably Großvater, did a cost analysis on the entire operation. The conclusion was that it would have been less expensive and certainly less labor-intensive, to have purchased pork butts on sale, rather than raising the pigs!  In subsequent years, this is exactly what was done. 

 

 
 
Sunday Meals

by Nick Tullius

There was hardly a Sunday in our Banat villages without "Supp un Fleisch" (meaning "soup &meat")
on the table for the main meal at noon.

The soup was most often made with beef shanks, including those 'bones with marrow'. Sometimes it could be chicken soup, or a 'beef and chicken' soup (rarely duck or goose). The soup cleared up beautifully, after the meat had been taken out, so it was really what you find in today's restaurants as "consommé".

Before serving, you added either very finely cut egg noodles, square-cut egg noodles (called Fleckle), cream-of-wheat dumplings (Griesknedle), or liver dumplings (Lewwerknedle) made from shaved chicken livers. Some people added ground black pepper (not really needed when the soup was good and peppercorns had been cooked with the soup, others added a little piece of dried red peepers (chilli pepper).

The meat removed from the soup was kept warm, together with the peeled potatoes, carrots, and parsley roots that were boiled with the soup, to be served as the second course, with a sauce. The most common sauces were made with fresh dill (Kapersos), garlic (Knowwelsos), or tomatoes (Paradeissos).

A summer specialty was the sauce made with sour cherries from the garden (Kerschesos). The horseradish sauce (Krensos) was not really a sauce, as it was really ground raw horseradish prepared with cream, vinegar, sugar, salt (the balance of ingredients is what counts). The horseradish roots kept well in the root cellar or cold storage room over the winter. Because the horseradish was so much hotter than onions, many tears were spilled when peeling and grating it. Today we buy prepared horseradish in little jars; it is acceptable if not too many extra ingredients have been added.

To conclude the Sunday meal, most often a "Kuchen" made from yeast dough was served. Examples are walnut rolls (Nussestrudel), poppy seed rolls (Maksstrudel), greaves cakes (Griewekuche; Grammelpogatsche) and many
others.

The 'soup and meat' was even served on holidays, but it was then followed by a roast (Bratl, Braten) typically of pork, beef, chicken, goose, duck, or (rarely) turkey. Besides fried or mashed potatoes, fruit preserves (Dunschtobst) accompanied the roast. For desert, finer baking products were brought out: Torten of various types, Krempita, Nussbitten, and many more. All were home-made.

 

To personally contact a recipe submitter, find their name on our Volunteer Registry.

 


   

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