Paládi-Kovács Attila: A Barkóság és népe (Borsodi Kismonográfiák 15. Miskolc, 1982)

In the latter half of the 19th Century there was a gradual change from construction with wood to building walls with mud and adobe. The more wealthy began to build from stone and brick. The manner of heating changed with the appearance of the open chimney and the setting up of a separate kitchen from what had been the antechamber, in the 20th Century. In the 1880s houses with wooden arcaded verandas and arched, arcaded outside corridors and gables began to appear (Fig. 43). Furnishings and furniture also changed with the boxes made by joiners being replaced by furniture produced by carpenters. Up to the end of the 19th Century lighting came from chaving torches, oil lamps and candles. Electrification took place between 1920 and 1940 while some villages only received electricity after 1950. Even today the farm buildings maintain many traditional elements of folk architecture. The most important are the barns which were used to store grains and to thresh them (Fig. 44-47). 6. One characteristic of the nutritional culture of the highland Hungarian is a soup made with a variety of pickled ingredients and thickened with milk or sour cream. The Barkós strictly kept the days of fast prescribed bv the church. During Lent they cooked a mush with sour bran (kiszi). They still maintain a weekly menu in which Monday, Wednesday and Friday are meatless, while meat is consumed on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Bread was traditionally made from rye flour. The more isolated villages only shifted to bread from wheat in the 1920s. The dough for their bread was carefully leavened with a yeast prepared at home (a thin flour paste, kovász, pár). They sometimes baked a flat bread without yeast. This flat, salty bread, with a diameter of 20 to 25 cm was baked in the ashes of the oven. They ate a variety of mush (millet, barley, maize) and mushed foods. They have characteristic dishes made of potatoes which were either boiled in water or fried in hot lard, dating from the early 19th Century (galuska, tócsni, trapacska). Boiled pastas are also among their favourite dishes. Alongside their old flat breads, milk-breads and pretzels, waffles were a baked food they enjoyed (molnárkalács). In summer and autumn the principally ate poultry and mutton, while in late autumn and winter they slaughtered fattened swine. They slaughtered cows for wedding feasts. Pork lard, bacon and smoked pork were important basics in Barkó eating habits, and they hardly used oil at all. The foods they ate were adjusted to the seasons, to the type of work that had to be done on the fields and to holiday rhythms. Very little wine was produced in the region. They purchased wine for holidays and wedding feasts from the region of Eger. Fruit brandies were much more common. They were princi192