Hungarian Heritage Review, 1987 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1987-07-01 / 7. szám
Cuitnarg Art of ^lungarg by - LOUIS SZATHMARY THE SEASON FOR CHERRIES Translation from one language into another is often difficult, and it has caused a lot of confusion through millenniums of diplomacy and international relations. Also it keeps playing havoc in the kitchen as well. Consider one of the most Hungarian of all soups, and the most favorite cold summer soup, Meggyleves. In the dictionary you would find its translation as morello soup, sour cherry soup, or cherry |oup. And if you look in a Hungarian dictionary under cseresznye, you will again find that it is the same soup. But, believe me, that is not so! Even the tree of the sour cherries in England, called morellos, is entirely different in Hungarian than the tree that bears the sweet cherries, “regular” cherries, so to speak. This magnificent-looking wood, with an inimitable and incomparable shiny dark bark, is grown in many regions of Hungary, not for its fruit but just for the wood. The second- or third-year saplings are cut right above the ground, dried carefully and slowly for a couple of years in special holding areas, then used for the manufacture of cigarette and cigar holders. There was a time, from the turn of the century until the Second World War, when all Europe was using Hungarian sour cherry or tart cherry wood cigarette and cigar holders. The 9 to 15 inch long, arrowstraight branches were the most favored pipe stems from the Scandinavian countries to Constantinople, and from Baghdad to London. I know, because I had a granduncle who was selling hundreds of thousands of the cigarette and cigar holders, and tens of thousands of the pipe stems to shops in London, and also in Madrid, Rome, Paris and Stockholm. The roots of these saplings were left in the ground to give them a second chance to grow, usually for two or three years. The straightest, thickest ones were made into walking sticks, lifting out the whole root section, and carving, from the part where the root met the original stem, the characteristic golf-ball size head of the walking stick. Along with the hazelnut branches, the tart cherry sticks were the most favored disciplinary and educational tools of Hungarian teachers in bygone days, while in England the imported cane from India — and in Germany and France the local willows — served the same purpose. Yes, “dusting the pants” of the students while they were in them was a part of their education. If you went home from school as an English student, it was most unlikely that your grandma or mother would soothe your pains by giving you a big bowl of cane soup, or in Germany willow soup. But Hungarian kids, disciplined with the tart cherry wood stick, could have a nice, large bowl of cold, tart cherry soup and a big hunk of strudel. In the United States, July is the month when the tart cherries are grown the most. In the Northwest, and in the East, you can still get some of the English morellos even up to the second week of July, and you can get the Montmorency cherries, mainly around the middle of July. The Montmorency are the most popular of the sour cherry varieties, and can be eaten fresh. But, of course, the main use is — at least for Hungarians — the cold cherry soup and the cherry strudel. The recipes for both follows: —continued next page 24 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW JULY 1987
