Nov 14th 2010
kecskemet hungary
hungary is asleep. They make really good wine in this country. hmmm. the weather is still beautiful. We did break down and buy ben a pair of long pants (second hand shop) because the hungarian grandmas were giving us dirty looks. Nobody speaks much english. Everybody speaks german. jill is pretending that she speaks german. Today we got off the train from Tokaj, lucked into a room at the Fabio Panzo and then checked out the toy museum. The little wooden pull toys brought me back to the cool toys that Salamon's son (Mo) used to make. Must be a hungarian thing. Then we tried to go to another museum which allegedly had a good collection of rocks and clocks. It was supposed to be open till 6pm. We arrived at 4:20. Two old ladies at the ticket booth started berating us in Hungarian. We took money out. The continued berating. Finally we deciphered the word "nem." no museum for us.
We had been given prior knowledge of the bands of clothing police. They did seem to cluster on corners. Two incidents were successfully managed with smiles, nods and moving on. I guess those Eastern Folks like it hot as our apartment was an uncontrolled sauna. Just about everyone wanted to talk to us when we walked the city - and we did a lot of walking. We were a real buggy brigade with the other adoptive families. The people are so very kind and interested in hearing everything. Dog problems weren't so visible in Bucharest, but my sad memory of Moscow dogs is still with me.
ReplyDeleteAbove post is in the wrong location as it all pertains to Bucharest.
ReplyDeleteFor the love of Apricots and the cookie wars over Helen's Extremely Delicious Apricot Kifles:
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia:
According to the regulation, an alcoholic beverage may be called palinka in the EU only if:
it is made 100-percent from fruits or herbs indigenous to the Carpathian Basin and grown in Hungary, or from pomace grown in Hungary, and does not contain any additives,
it is produced and bottled in Hungary, its alcohol content is between 37.5% and 86% ABV.
In 2004 the European Union accepted pálinka as a Hungarian speciality, and hence its production is limited to Hungary (and four provinces of Austria for pálinka made from apricot). This caused some confusion in neighbouring countries, as some claimed that producers of fruit brandies would have to pay a royalty to Hungary [2]. This is however not the case. It is the brand "pálinka" that is protected by Hungarian and EU law, hence producers outside of Hungary are not allowed to use the brand "pálinka" for their products, but they are free to produce fruit brandies and sell them under different names. This is in spite of the drink being historically distilled in most of historical Hungary, many regions of which fall outside the present-day borders.
A popular saying in Hungary says: what can be used to prepare jam can also be used to produce pálinka. (Clearly, for a fruit to be suitable for jam production it has to contain some sugar.) This saying suggests that pálinka can be made from a large variety of fruits, and indeed it is made from most of the fruits available in Hungary.
The most common pálinkas are made from apricots, pears, and plums. Other fruits that are often used are sour cherries, apples, mulberries and quince. Nevertheless, pálinka made from chestnuts is also available.
Barack (pronounced "baratsk") is a type of pálinka made of, or flavored with, apricots. The word barack is a collective term for both apricot (in Hungarian sárgabarack, lit. "yellow-peach") and peach (in Hungarian őszibarack, lit. "autumn-peach").
Pálinka made of pomace (törkölypálinka) is very popular as well, and is a typical drink in the wine producing regions of the country.
An unusual way of presenting pear palinka is when the bottle contains a whole fruit inside[3]. The tiny immature fruit and its branch are threaded into the bottle, and the pear matures there to a point where it is much larger than the bottle opening.