Day 53- Budapest
Budapest is one of my favourite cities. Had an absolutely delightful day here. I would even chuck in a few of my other blog buzz words including “beautiful”, “lovely” and “ absolutely amazing”.
Arriving to food tour omg
What better way to start the day. I had booked a tour which could have up to 8 guests and showed up at Central Market Hall. It was $145 which was a massive stretch but honestly why not. This is an incredible building inspired by the Eiffel Tower. The Hungarian government built four of these across the city in the 1870’s after all the open air markets got infested with cockroaches and snow for most of the year.
To my incredible fortune, the mysterious Mr & Mrs Chapelle from the US were both unwell and unable to attend. Private tour baby! With portions made for 4! I steeled myself for feeling like a spoiled baby.
I now also felt no concern in asking Orsha to photograph me as her happy customer.
Over the four hours and 12 spots I was reminded just why I love food tours. The history of a people is in their food. It explains their culture, customs and sends you directly into every family’s dinner table. Hungarian food also happens to perfectly correlate with my food preferences. We are talking:
- Cottage cheese
- Chocolate
- Pickles
- Sausages and Salami
- Kraut & Mustard
I will now give you the rundown in several loose listicle paragraphs.
Market foods were first up.
This is their street food. A donut covered in garlic juice, sour cream and a mild cheddar. How could this not be delicious.
Next up we had the salami. I tried types called horse, curly haired pig, pork cheese (has all the different bits of the animal as different cubes) and Hungarian winter. Horse weirdly tasted how I thought it would. A wild earthy flavour that made me think of riding horses.
Some of the interesting things we saw in the market include a tonne of foie gras- Hungary is one the worlds largest producers- a tonne of fat and a delicacy of a whole chicken with an egg still in it.
A benefit of being on this tour alone was that Orsha had to field all my questions. She was likely unprepared for the grilling that arrived. Some facts for you:
- The Hungarian countryside is largely rural. Other than Budapest the next biggest city has only 100,000 people.
- The country is smaller than Victoria.
- Hungary are the fifth largest people size wise. They eat a humongous amount of meat. They also cook their meat in lard. The government is currently attempting to convert people from pig fat to the “healthier” goose fat for cooking.
- The government is super right wing and the leader is massively anti-refugee. Best friends with Trump. Of the 1.5m Ukrainian refugees that passed through only 50,000 are still here.
- The Hungarian people came from Asia.
Best part of the whole tour
The pickle tasting. That is right. The Hungarians are super into pickles. I was led down several alleys to the pickle basement. Cordoned off due to its offensive fragrance. She was concerned I might not like the smell. As an amateur pickler and somebody that has hosted an actual pickle party she couldn’t have worried more pointlessly.
Enter Marika, my hero. Handmaking pickles in the basement for over 50 years.
I got to choose my very own pickle selection and try them out. Easily the best I have ever had. My favourites were the kraut and the mini watermelons.
When I get back I am going to flat out not stop until I have prepared a pickle jar with a smile on it. Look forward to Christmas presents everybody as I think a month of unemployment should just about do it.
Also coincidentally I screenshotted this yesterday. I will just leave it here.
Rest of the tour
You know what else the Hungarians are into? Deliciousness. Lunch was this sausage and goulash place. Served with oodles of cabbage and horseradish. Divine. Followed by some iced coffee and cake that I ate before taking a picture of. It started with one forkful, then quickly snowballed until both slices were gobbled up.
I learnt a bit more historical stuff from Orsha too. Something I noticed as soon as I got off the train was how decrepit all the old buildings were. I asked Orsha what was up with that.
Basically what happened was that the Hungarians sided with Germany in both world wars. Hence they had massive damage in WW2 from gunfire and allied bombing.
After WW2 Hungary lost heaps of its land and was handed to the Soviets. After that they were largely communist. The soviets converted all the rich aristocratic houses into social housing and didn’t bother to repair them for 50 years. Hence the damage on these houses is genuinely from WW2.
There was also a large wall discovered from the original Budapest boundaries recently that we strolled past.
A very odd but nice final experience
The strangest part of the whole thing was the final portion of the tour. Wine and cheese tasting with an actual sommelier in a huge cellar. I must say this was certainly not designed for one person, and certainly not a wine noob such as myself. I laughed and sipped and enjoyed desert wine with blue cheese as I nodded along to my very own personal wine lecture. A glorious combination.
My personal sommelier had not much to say to me after I requested to try some non alcoholic wines. I was having too much fun at this time and asked him all about what he thought about them. He said simply that it was a disgrace and “grape juice”. Oh Gregor. Keep pouring em.
I strolled home after this, quite drunk and somehow lost an earring. A perfect day really. Topped up off with such a heavy nap that I fell asleep on my sunglasses and hairbrush.
Feelings
Loving it here. Really coming into its own this whole “Europe” thing. The further east we are getting the more I am loving it which is promising. The fast pace is also a nice change that is making time go very fast.
Today was just great. I very clearly need to do more food tours as it is just about my favourite experience a human can have. Tired but loved today.
Xxxx
