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.
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