William Penn Life, 2010 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2010-05-01 / 5. szám
Tibor is right! FARADJON BE A MAGYAR KONYHÁBA! It is a matter of choice. You can choose to cook the right way or take cheap shortcuts then make excuses for your food at the dinner table. Before I continue with the article, let me do some housekeeping. Mark your calendar for the WPA golf tournament at Chestnut Ridge on July 17 in Blairsville, Pa. See the WPA for details or call the Home Office for information. The Hungarian Heritage Experience in August is the next event, and, finally, the WPA Picnic-A Great Fraternal Fest will be held on Sept. 11 at Scenic View. Trivia Question: We enjoy paprika in our Magyar food. Whom should we thank for this wonderful ingredient cherished by the whole world? The spicy answer awaits you! So, here I go... Nothing is hard if you take the time to do it right. Unfortunately, that does not happen often. Good food comes from good cooks and bad from bad cooks. It is that simple! To add insult to injury, when someone makes a bad dish, the blame game starts. The person responsible for the bad meal puts the onus of bad food on everything, including the family dog. Instead of making excuses, take the time to make a better meal. I do not get many invitations to dinner and a good friend told me, "It is because you are a chef!" Everyone thinks I am coming over to review the food. The truth is you can serve me anything, including a pizza, and I will not complain, as long as you are cooking and not I. While I would never embarrass the host or myself by commenting on the food, I do make mental notes about the food. On one occasion, a neighbor invited me over to lunch for "Magyar" macaroni and cheese. Here was this bubbly yellow cheese concoction just out of the oven, and before we could put a spoon in to serve, she doused the top with paprika, as a baker would cover his pastry bench with flour. She saw the bewildered look on my face and explained the paprika made it Magyar style. I guess the heavier you pour on the paprika, the more Magyar it is. Equating age to good cooking is another misnomer. "All old Hungarians are good cooks." Let's see: János is Hungarian. He is also 71, and therefore, he is a good cook. How do you equate good food from the above statements? You cannot. For all we know, János has been cooking bad food, only doing it longer because of his age. My last pet peeve is those who take shortcuts and try to pass it off as genuine Hungarian. Not having attended the event, I base this story on a second-hand account from a friend who did. An old Hungarian was making Magyar soup, cream of mushroom, Í for lunch serving 50 people. He had his old friend helping in the kitchen. They started heating the cream of mushroom soup on the stove. His friend was in charge of putting canned mushrooms through a blender then adding them to the soup. It seems that the blender top fell into the mushrooms and was ground into tiny pieces then served in each bowl of soup. It would have been easier and made more sense to make the soup from scratch. Nevertheless, I guess they chose to do things their way, a shortcut, and it was a disaster. Cooking for lots of people is easy if you have a plan and stick to it. Most people think they know what to do but the reality is they are clueless and they take an "I am the boss" attitude. To those folks it is more important to be in charge than it is to put out a good meal, which is very sad. In every crowd, you can find one person who can cook. That person should be in charge of the meal. Everyone else should stay out of the kitchen and go into the dining room. Therefore, Tibor, you are right! It is a matter of choosing the right way to prepare Hungarian food. If more people did that, it would be a happier place with everyone eating Csirke Paprikás and stuffed cabbage. Trivia Answer: Christopher Columbus is responsible for bringing the paprika pepper (capsicum annum) to Europe from Mexico. The Szeged and Kalocsa regions produce the best paprika in the world. A Paprika Museum is in Kalocsa where you will also find the Paprika Festival held each October. Have a great month and enjoy the recipes with paprika! (Jó ótu-á.ff'ff'&t 'ögzaíács Báfa The Hungarian Kitchen is a trademark of William S. Vasvary. 10 0 May 2010 0 William Penn Life The Hungarian Kitchen with Foszakás Béla
