Németh Szandra - Saly Noémi: Catering for guests, being a guest. Permanent exhibition on Hungarian hospitality (Budapest, 2016)
78 SENTIMENTAL STRINGS: RIGÓ JANCSI Hungarian Gipsy musicians appeared at bathing resorts and hotels of Western Europe as early as the mid-19 th century, but none of them became as famous as Jancsi Rigó (1858–1927). His career led him from a small village of the Transdanubian region to Paris, where the Belgian prince Chimay’s wife, Clara Ward, daughter of an American millionaire heard him playing his violin and fell in love so fondly with the stalwart fiddler that she left her husband. The world press resounded with the scandal. During the ten years of their love affair they squandered eight million dollars of Clara’s riches. Then the lady ran away with a waiter. Having been disowned by her family she tried to make a living as a photo model. Her husband wondered from pub to pub in Europe, then in Pest. He died forlorn, in poverty. It is said that the pastry-cook of Hotel Rémi in Budapest turned the romantic story to good use. In 1896 the cook gave the name Rigó Jancsi to a pastry made of cocoa paste filled with cocoa flavoured whipped cream coated with a layer of chocolate. GUNDEL PANCAKE Károly Gundel (1883−1956) followed the footsteps of his father, János Gundel in the restaurateur trade. Within two hundred years at least twenty members of Gundel family chose this vocation, one more famous and outstanding than the other. Gundel was only 25 years old when he became director of a hotel in Tátralomnic, then in 1910 he took over the most famous eatery from Wampetits József situated at the City Park (Városliget) in Budapest. From 1920 to 1925 he was the lessee of the restaurants of Hotel Royal Budapest and Hotel Gellért (from 1927). In 1939 at the New York World’s Fair he was the head of the restaurant at the Hungarian Pavilion. According to the New York Times reporting on the restaurant at the World Fair in New York in1939 Gundel did more to enhance Hungary’s reputation than a shipload of tourist brochures could have done’. Gundel’s books of gastronomy have been standard works since then. His restaurant was nationalized – but the name Gundel was left on the facade. One of his most famous products, the dessert bearing his name, is a pancake with a filling of walnut cream, sultanas soaked in rum, orange-peel, glazed with a good layer of chocolate, decorated with a tiny cone of whipped cream. RÁKÓCZI COTTAGE CHEESE CAKE The pastry has nothing to do with prince Rákóczi, defender of Hungarian freedom. It was first produced by János Rákóczi (1897−1966). The great Hungarian chef started work in Budapest in 1920 and then, in 1924 he moved to Paris where he spent two years. After returning home he was chef at the famous Nándor Horváth restaurateur, from 1930 at Hotel Palota, Lillafüred. From 1933 he worked as a chef at Hotel Gellért, Budapest, and from 1953 at Hotel Duna until his retirement in 1961. He won several gold medals at international competitions. In 1958 he was the chef at the Hungarian pavilion at Brussels World Fair with enormous success, for he got elected among the six best chefs of the world. János Rákóczi made this cottage cheese cake in the 1930’s, inspired by the fine pies of famous old Hungarian cuisine. The cake became internationally famous in Brussels. Its secret is in the special combination of flavours that consists of special Hungarian cottage cheese and apricot jam. The layers from down upwards: shortcake, jam, cottage cheese with sour cream and sultanas, meringue.
