Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)

Mária Kresz†: Kettle and Pot

The essence of “paprikás” is to fry onions in fat, add paprika, then the meat and stew it with little water as long as necessary.

“Pörkölt” is done quite differently. (This was the way herdsmen used to stew preserved meat dried in the sun.) Meat, whatever kind, beef, mutton, pork, poultry is put into the kettle without any fat or water and is broiled on the open fire in its own gravy stirring it as necessary. The main rule is not to add anything, not even seasoning.

Meat done as neither “paprikás” nor “pörkölt” has no name of its own, but is prepared in a different way. The meat is put into the kettle together with onion and water and is cooked over a blazing fire. Salt and paprika are added when boiling, but some of the paprika only at the very end so that the food should be bright red in colour. Meat prepared this way can have a soup-like sauce or can be stewed down to gravy. Herdsmen, shepherds, fishermen cook this way, and this is the way pork is cooked when pig-sticking.

It seems evident that of these three ways of cooking in a kettle, the most recent is the very first.

The two kinds of cooking vessels,—four out-of-doors or indoors,—in summer or winter—by men or by women— may be distinguished first of all according to the kind of food being prepared. Earthenware pots are used when food needs even heat and slow cooking, for beans, cabbage, broth. Kettles (and cassaroles or tripods) are used for quick cooking, for broiling. First and foremost the food to be prepared is the reason for deciding which kind of vessel is to be used. If a man hoes by himself in his wineyard he cooks some nuddles quickly in his kettle, but at vintage time when the whole family gathers to pick the grapes broth was cooked in a large earthenware pot such as used for weddings (Kresz 1960, 310). If a woman wanted to cook a dish at home which is usually prepared in a kettle, she might use her kettle even on a modern stove placing it < rectly over the cinders. It is also absolutely logical that in winter when the house had to be heated by the oven, the fire was also made use for cooking, while in the summer the oven was not heated and cooking was rather done on an open hearth in the kitchen or out-of-doors, and a keitle was more likely to be used.

Though earthenware kettles are known as distincively Hungarian vessels, yet metallic kettles are considered as the requisite of open hearths and fireplaces in many countries, especially in the Balkan and the Mediterrean regions (Bátky 1931, 1934; Gunda 1935, 1936; Barabás 1970). Two recent earthenware variants of metallic kettles come from the neighbourhood of Fiume and were collected by János X a n t u s in 1894 (Ethnographical Museum, No. 6338—6339).

As all over the world pottery began with rounded vessels, these had to be supported by three stones or in some other manner, and so in many places of the workd a tripod evolved (Harrison 1928). With the advanced use of metal, vessels could also be prepared from metal. Metallic kettles and caldrons appear at a very early stage of history, sometimes huge in size, often for ritual purposes, sacrifices. Very famous are the cauldrons of the Huns, their drawings appear in Chinese chronicals (Felvinczi Takács 1934). In the Ermitage of Leningrad there are two notable cauldrons, both very ornate, both signed and dated. One is a small cauldron from Iran dated 1180/1185 (No. IR 1668) made of bronze

with silver, copper and gold decoration. It has a handle and was used in a bath. The name of the proprietor is also on it with good wishes in the inscription. The other cauldron is huge, almost two and a half meters wide, it is footed, but handles all around (No. CA 15930). It was made ordered by Timur Lenk to hold sweet holy water in a mausoleum in Central Asia, and is signed by the maker, “A poor slave true to Allah”. The date is 1399.

A tripod could also be of metal either in the West or in the East. Ornate tripods appear in China already from the Shang dynasty (B. C. 1523—1027) and the Western Chou dynasty (B. C. 1027—770) (Ridley 1973). Ceramic tripods existed both in China and in Persia and also in pre-Columbian America. By no means are these considered to have any relationship with European forms.

In western Europe it was generally the roundbased earthenware pot which developed into a tripod, such are frequent on paintings from the Netherlands. In Hungary, however, the tripod is much lower than the cooking pot, probably so that it should be more easy to stir the meal broiling in it. Even is modern Hungarian, a “fazék” is a relatively high vessel, while the word “lábas” (“tripod”) is used for a low saucepan even if its has no legs any more. Should it still be a tripod, the distinction “lábos lábos” e.g. “tripod tripod” is used (No. 141882 Tüskevár). The tripod or casserole can have one two handles, but more often a hollow grip turned on the potters’ wheel by which it can be held close to the fire. Tripods can also be made of tinkered tin, and from the 19th century of cast iron.

The kettle can be replaced by an earthenware or a metallic tripod a skillet for cooking out-of-doors and for mascular cooking. Among the Calvinists of the village Tiszanána at weddings the meat dishes were prepared by men, not by women (as among the Catholics) and they used a skillet for the cooking.

Earthenware tripods were present in Hungary already in medieval times according to archeologist Imre H o 11. They derived from those regions of Hungary where fire clay was quarried and where cooking pots were being made.

With the industrial revolution cooking pots of cast iron were also used and were also called “fazék”. So attention must be called to the difficulty that when we read about an “iron pot” of the 19th century, it is impossible to tell whether a cylinder form of cast iron pot is meant or a round bottomed iron kettle. When the famous poet of the 20th century, Attila József wrote that the three Magi brought a whole “iron potful” of incense to the Child Jesus, which kind did he mean?

There is an earthenware cooking vessel called “bakrács” in south-western Hungary, in County Vas, which has a lid and is used on an open fire for preparing stew. It can have three feet or is without feet, in which case an iron tripod is used. Such cooking pots are made up to the present and are used in the vineyards up on the hills. Food cooked in these vessels has an excellent taste. This vessel, however, has nothing to do with the medieval earthenware kettle and must be a direct descendant of Balkan traditions.

The problem of the ordinary earthenware cooking pot, the flat bottomed “fazék” was discussed far less by Zsigmond Bátky. He was more interested in the implement used together with the cooking pot, notably the fork for placing that pot into the oven, called “kuruglya”. (A Ma-251