Agria 43. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2007)

Szabó László: Egy jellegzetes jászsági étel kaukázusi gyökereiről dzükka és vajalja

László Szabó A Characteristic Jászság Dishes and their Caucasion Roots: Dzükka and Vajalja Studying in North Ossetia the author became aware of the potentially rich research area offered by Ossetian-yVls'z, and indeed Cuman and Caucasian-y'ász cultural relationships. One particularly promising area lay in the field of diet. Here we focus on a dairy dish, vajalja, which was once considered popular in the Jászság (an area in central-northern Hungary on the Great Plain). We decided to examine this peculiarly jász dish, together with the origins of its name, because it is made in almost exactly the same way as one of the variants of the Ossetians' national dish, dzükka. According to a number of Ossetian writers this dish, which exists in many variants and is associated with a certain cults, is something that cannot be found in the diets of any of the surrounding Caucasian peoples. The two dishes in question here, however, are almost entirely identical, the only difference being that in Hungary it includes cornflour, an ingredient of relatively recent European provenance. This, however, is not a major consideration as we know from other sources that vajalja was also baked using wheat or barley gruel, before being replaced by cornflour. The Ossetians also eat dzükka as a main course both hot and cold, usually without bread. Using the most recent Russian and Hungarian research and observations made in both regions we make a comparative study between the two regions while at the same time focusing on the cultural relationships existing between the two ethnic groups. 421