The Drinker’s Guide to Hungarikums
There is always something delicious (and local) to drink in Hungary. The drinks that inspire the most pride in Hungary have also been named Hungarikums.
The Eater’s Guide to Hungarikums
If you spend time in Hungary, sooner or later you’ll hear talk of ‘Hungarikums.’ As any traveler will quickly learn, Hungarians are proud (and fiercely protective) of their natural treasures, achievem...
Understanding Tokaj
This guide will help you understand some of the essential Tokaji concepts, decode the important vocabulary you will find on a bottle of wine from Tokaj, and just generally put the nuances of the regio...
Dobos Torta
In a country renowned for its beautiful baked goods, the glistening and golden-tinted Dobos torta is arguably Hungary’s most famous layer cake.
Gyula Krúdy: Hungary’s Gourmet Writer
Hungarian food is closely tied in with the country’s literature, and perhaps no other writer captures the romance of the early-20th-century Budapest café society and the magic of Hungarian food better...
Jókai Bean Soup: Steamy Romance In A Bowl
You can see why Jokai was so taken with the soup. Jókai bableves has a rich, nourishing flavor that intoxicates and demands to be overindulged in. The meal is hearty in the truest sense of the word. W...
How to Deliver Túró Rudi to a Friend
Túró Rudi is one of those acquired tastes, but once acquired, impossible to shake.
Taste Hungary 10.0
For Taste Hungary’s 10th birthday, I’ve looked back at some of the key moments of our first decade and some of the things I’m most grateful for … one for each year.
Hungary’s Unique Szilveszter (New Year’s) Traditions and Superstitions
In Hungary, you’d be doing yourself a disservice for the rest of the year if you didn’t eat plenty of lentils to ring in the new year.
Tokaji Aszú: The Story of The World’s Oldest Sweet Wine
A bottle of Tokaji aszú holds deep history, fascinating myths, much hard work, centuries of passion, and plenty of sheer luck.
A Comeback to Hanukkah
The way that celebrating Hanukkah shifted from being a big social event to an intimate family gathering, as it is today, shows how Jews regained their religious consciousness. The importance of food a...
The Humbling Experience of a Tokaji Aszú Harvest
In Tokaj the grapes are harvested several times, to make wines of varying levels of sweetness. If the noble rot has developed there will be an aszú harvest in which the berries are selected by hand, o...
Unicum: Hungarian History in a Glass
Unicum is a national institution in Hungary, and has a long history that in some ways mirrors the history of modern Hungary itself.
Flódni: The Four Act Pastry
Flódni is a traditional Hungarian Jewish confection. With fillings of poppy, walnut, apple, and plum jam, separated by five layers of sweet pastry, its flavors of tart, bitter, and sweet meld together...
How To Buy Homemade Pálinka (and Why You Should)
We’re not saying it’s a good idea to buy under-the-counter pálinka, but if that’s what you want, you should know how to go about getting it.
Bookish in Buda: Literary Cafés of Budapest
With cafés like Centrál and New York giving shelter and comfort to writers of the famous Nyugat movement of Hungarian writing, you can’t talk about a classic Hungarian café without mentioning the writ...
Land of Fire and Salt: Hungary’s Volcanic Wine Regions
Imagine a landscape with numerous giant volcanoes spewing out lava and ash and a receding, bubbling inland sea. This was Hungary ten or fifteen million years ago.
Elegy to Zsiros Kenyér: A Good-bye to Budapest’s Classic Pub Grub
In Budapest, some dishes go out of style, only to be re-introduced years later as more expensive ‘retro’ fare. It also happens that some dishes disappear not to be seen again.
Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage: The Wedding Gift You Didn’t Know You Wanted
More than fortification for the coming party, the midnight cabbage represents a kind refusal to give in.
Dog Tongues and Ink: Historic Literary Coffeehouses in Budapest
If nostalgia had a taste, it would be that of a bitter, robust sip of coffee served at Centrál Café, or one of the other coffee houses in Budapest.
Lecsó as a Verb
Lecsó as a noun is known in flippant company as the Hungarian ratatouille, the dish that's not really a stew, not a soup, not exactly a side dish, but somehow takes characteristics of all these.
Szalonna: Call It Delicious, Just Don’t Call It Bacon
Every now and again a word gets mistranslated, and that mistranslation is picked up on and replicated until it’s been hopelessly absorbed into common usage.
Discovering Tokaj’s Sweet Secrets: At Home in Erdőbénye
Winemakers in Tokaj are singularly obsessed with a fungus called botrytis. And I had become fascinated by these winemakers who go to such lengths and expense to make this traditional wine.
Gulyás: The Ultimate Hungarian Soup (Recipe)
Gulyás is the one Hungarian dish that most people think they know. But their imagination of gulyás rarely resembled the real Hungarian thing.
That’ll Do Pig: The Marvelous Rise of Mangalica
If you haven’t heard of Mangalica, don’t feel left out. The fact that there is any of it at all is a small miracle.
The Ever-Popular Old School Fröccs
When the weather gets hot in Hungary, fröccs season is on. A refreshing mixture of soda water and wine, it's the ultimate summer go-to drink.
The 1956 Tokaj Aszú: A Wine With A Long Finish
The 1956 vintage was a good one in Tokaj. But 1956 didn’t go down in the history books for the great quality of botrytis in Tokaj, rather because of the revolution that began on October 23rd.
Hungarian Paprika: The Essential Red Spice
If there is one ingredient that Hungary is undeniably associated with, it's paprika. It symbolizes Hungarian cuisine and is an essential component of some of the best-known Hungarian dishes.
The Lost World of The Jewish Wine Trade in Hungary (and The Old Habsburg Empire) Part I.
This story of how the Hungarian (and Central European) wine trade functioned before the two world wars and communism is not a well-known one.
Christmas in Hungary
You can tell Christmas is coming in Hungary when cukrászdas begin stockpiling bejglis. Whether filled with poppyseed or walnuts, these cylindrical shaped cakes are the essence of Hungarian Christmas.
Sunday Lunch in Hungary
Sunday lunch is practically a sacred ritual in Hungary. This I learned when I found myself sitting at a table set under towering chestnut trees, eating the kind of meal I usually only ate on holidays....
The Lost World of The Jewish Wine Trade in Hungary (and The Old Habsburg Empire), Part II.
What happened before the takeover of the state-owned coops in Hungary, which lasted more than forty years (and devastated Hungarian wine)?
