Németh Szandra - Saly Noémi: Catering for guests, being a guest. Permanent exhibition on Hungarian hospitality (Budapest, 2016)
9 ?e Confectionery In the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries, several Swiss, Austrian and Italian confectioners settled in Pest-Buda (as Budapest was then called) and in the cities of northern Hungary, as well as in Győr, Pécs, Temesvár (now Timisoara, Romania), and in Gyula and Jászberény too by the 1840s. After gaining independence, their apprentices opened their own, now Hungarian kitchens. Initially, they sold their wares to merchants and caterers. ?ey didn’t usually have their own shop, and especially not one in which guests could sit down and enjoy the desserts they produced, but from the 1820s and 30s confectioneries slowly began to become a popular site for social life in the country’s larger cities. While coffee houses were usually suited to the tastes and requirements of the menfolk, confectioneries catered to the needs of the female public and conjured up a salon atmosphere. In contrast to the cigar and pipe smoke filled coffee houses, smoking was not allowed here – in the interests of protecting the desserts. Because they were regarded as “comme il faut” ◆ Jr. Ede Friedl and his wife in front of their confectionery, cc. 1936 ◆ Confectionery Ruszwurm in the 1910s ◆ Glass for Krampampuli (drink of the devil), 1860s
