June 02, 2008 by Vándorló Budapest

There is always some weird stuff going on in the garden. Spring had the woodpeckers out in force each morning and late afternoon, sounding like the noise of distant road drills. Right now it's the emergence of pomegranate blossom. 

I know, it doesn't sound much like Budapest, but this is Buda, the hilly side of town. The bit that forms a backdrop to the castle district. Up here we get woken up by the raucous din of warblers, chaffinches... fighting over their mating and nesting territories. It's noisy, but you can get use to it.

I'm trying my best to pick the two cherry trees clean of fruit before they are go over. I'm getting through about a breakfast bowl a cherries a day so far and have rediscovered my childhood talent for scaling trees effortlessly. For the first few days it was great, but I'm beginning to hate the prospect of eating any more cherries. So I've taken to giving the things away in big bags. It's retarded, I know, but I just can't let the stuff go to waste.

Elsewhere in the garden the walnuts are coming along. The English word 'walnut' comes from an Old English word  meaning "foreign nut" ('wealhhnutu' - wealh meaning "foreign"). I was a bit slow on the uptake last Autumn, as I had never had the opportunity to collect walnuts straight from the tree. This meant I picked some too early and was put off by the bitter taste of the unripe nut oils.

I was a bit over eager as I know the nut oil is much higher in omega-3 when fresh and young. It's also meant to have preventative properties against the onset of Alzheimer's. Anyway, by the time I tried them again, half had already gone. The ones I did manage to collect managed to last me through till early May. Which meant suffering for about 3 weeks while the garden never offered anything free to eat.

But while I never made full use of the bounty offered by the walnuts, I completely missed out on the almonds before it was too late. Truth is, I hadn't got a clue they were there even though there are 5 of the things scattered front and back. I just never expected to see an almond tree and especially one full of nuts.

Two of the trees are currently doing battle with a form of wood ear or cloud ear mushroom (Auricularia auricula-judae), which is that jelly-like mushroom that Chinese love and westerners seem to hate - and I'm indifferent to, but it's fun to pick and eat occasionally. Always worth trying to serve them to unsuspecting guests to see their reaction.

But as you can see, the almond trees are pretty packed with nuts, so I'm collecting new recipes to try out. Particularly those that use almonds and pomegranate or walnuts and pomegranate.

Of all the trees in the garden the pomegranate was the last to come
into leaf and the last to blossom. It's not much of a tree all told, more of a straggly bush or shrub and stands about 5 meters tall. But it is a wonder that the thing is here at all. It's not the hardiest of plants, so can only cope down to about -10C, so that it has managed to get through all the Winters unscathed is great.

As the plant was the last to come into leaf (starting as late as April), the blossom buds only really started to show up 10 days ago.

 They all bare an uncanny resemblance to a viper's head when looked at head on.

About 4 days ago these buds broke open and the blossom has started to emerge, ranging from deep orange through to blood red.

I know of no others anywhere round here, so I am pretty certain that the tree is self pollinating. I am also experimenting with some pomegranate seeds I collected last year to see if I can get some to grow. Only recently I found out the best method of propagation is by hardwood cuttings taken in Autumn, leaves removed and buried 2/3rds into soil.

Useful Vocabulary

• Az élet nem habos torta - life isn't a bowl of cherries
• Kiválasztja a legjobbat - cherry pick
• Hullott gyümölcs - windfall (this is the literal meaning of windfallen fruit)
• Váratlan szerencse - windfall (this is the meaning of unexpected gift, blessing...)
• Fafüle gomba - wood ear mushroom
• Bogarat tett a fülébe - plant the seed of an idea (the Hungarian literally means "put a beatle in someone's ear")
  
• Potyázik - to freeload
  
• "A dolgok természetéb?l következik, hogy..." - it is in the nature of things that...
  

March 17, 2008 by Vándorló Budapest

Thankfully we have survived March 15th yet again. Like previous years the March 15th 'celebration' of past glory was hijacked and turned into a political dirge by pen-pushing heroes of new.

Despite Orbán's victory parade the events were, and are, largely predictable. We will be back here again next year. It is after all how Hungarians like to spend their free time, crowding together and complaining about everyone else who doesn't agree with everything they say. The object is never progress, it is always to 'win'. Compromise is about as dirty a word in Hungarian life and politics as you can get.

This time of the year always brings to mind Rakovszky Zsuzsa's poem Fehér-Fekete:

Egy fehér-
fekete logika - érv-ellenérv -
őről, s zsarol, hogy el kell döntenem:
egész-igen, vagy az egészre: nem.

It's a black and
white logic - thesis and antithesis -
that wracks and tears at me to choose:
embrace it all, or to everything, no.

(translation note: deepest apologies to the poet, it's only here to guide. Please take the time to read the original or a translation that wasn't just done off the top of my head.)

But you might have been forgiven for thinking that the whole of the weekend and series of demonstrations/rallies were a dead loss. Well not all. From the most unexpected corner came a sign of some clear thinking. It seems the path to the future health and prosperity of Hungary has finally been worked out by those hyper intelligent members of the right. The basic plan is a return to old style Hungarian values and traditions. Which in their books means a return to mother nature and hunter-gathering lifestyle. No kidding.

On Saturday, whilst the various members of the leading parties were doing their peacock walks around town the far right members of Jobbik gathered in Erzsébet Square for an all in hate-fest. During which, however, a Fogyasztóvédelmi kommandó (something like 'Commando in charge of protecting consumption') pointed out that the quality of supermarket food fruit and veg was basically, well, it wasn't good.

Actually I'm with them on this, the quality of veg and fruit in the supermarkets here is criminal and it wasn't always like this. The tomatoes and fruit here is just as rock hard and unripe as anywhere else in Europe now, special thanks to Tesco and the others. I'm not a big fan of advocating commando style back to nature foraging for food, however. My main reason is selfishness. I just don't want you amateurs getting in on the game. The last thing I need is the forests full of hunter-gatherers striping my carefully mapped hunting grounds of all their free food.

That said there is a lot of free food on offer here right in the heart of Budapest. Last year I made the (hopefully temporary) move up into Buda. And noticed, to my delight, that life really is richer up here. My apartment has a communal garden in which there are, wait for this, walnut, almond, cherry trees and one pomegranate tree; in addition to some brambles that must have started life long ago in the 60's as cultivated varieties.

But the current residents just can't be bothered, so they let all this seasonal bounty rot on the vine (or branch). Well they did until I turned up. So anyway, as my part to help Hungarians find their way back to nature here is my contribution to the yet to be compiled 'Book of Magyar Munchies from the Wild'.

Using pomegranates and walnuts together is a very Persian and Armenian thing so you could have the Persian recipe of 'Khoreshe Fessenjan' which is chicken covered with pomegranate and walnut sauce, but how about just some simple Armenian pomegranate and walnut paté:

Measure Ingredient
2 Pomegranates
¼ cup Chopped walnuts (1oz) lightly toasted
¾ cup (to 1 cup) bread crumbs
2 cup Red bell pepper finely chopped (2 small or 1 large)
2 tablespoon Lemon juice or to taste
½ teaspoon (to 1 tsp) red pepper flakes soaked in
1 tablespoon Hot water
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoon Cilantro, coarsely chopped

1. Cut one of the pomegranates in half and juice on a citrus reamer. You should have ¬ cup juice. Break the other pomegranate apart and extract the seeds, Reserve half of the seeds for garnish. 2. Grind the walnuts and 3/4 cup bread crumbs in a food processor. Grind in half the pomegranate seeds and the bell pepper, pomegranate juice, lemon juice, pepper flakes, cumin, salt and pepper. The mixture should be the consistency of soft ice cream; add bread crumbs as necessary. Correct the seasoning, adding salt, cumin, or lemon juice. The pat? should be highly seasoned. 3. Transfer the paté to a bowl and sprinkle with cilantro and the remaining pomegranate seeds. Arrange pita chips around the pat? and serve at once. Makes enough to serve 4-6.

Useful Vocabularly

• "Bolti bűnözés": shop crimes, the phrase mirrors that of corportate crime ('társasági bűnözés'), which gives you an idea of how serious they think you should take this.
• Gránátalma: pomegranate
• Kiegyezés: compromise or conciliation. They have a word for it, so it's not completely alien.

September 06, 2006 by Vándorló Budapest

Well, it's pretty much my favorite time of the year. The Wine Harvests are being celebrated across the regions, fruit trees are full and the woods are full of free food. For this it's worth enduring those lousy hot Summer days.

Best of all the forest floors and verdant fields are ripe with fungi. Of course, you can find mushrooms any time of the year (e.g. oyster mushrooms in the heavy frosts of Winter), but now the countryside is packed with them.

I'd normally be heading off to some part of the British Isles round now as those fools just leave the things to rot. Deep down in their subconscious is some primeval link between mushrooms and goblins, water spirits and the other side. Best summed up by their belief that there is such a distinct thing as a Toadstool (from the German 'die Tode Stuhle' or "seats of death" and nothing to do with amphibians).

But that is the trouble with mushrooms, you can make fatal mistakes. The consequences of which are just appalling. So the story last week of a 6 people from Magyarpolányi being poisoned after eating Amanita phalloides (the 'Death Cap' or 'gyilkos galóca' in Hungarian) didn't look hopeful.

Saying it didn't look hopeful is putting it mildly. Even a small amount of the Death Cap can be deadly and for the hours that the poison wracks your body you probably want the end to come all the quicker. A brief description of the symptoms are:

For the first 24 hours you won't have a clue the misery your body is going to be put through. The Death Cap gives very few warning signs. Then it hits you with diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, and cold sweats. This gets worse, so bad in fact that you start to suffer from dehydration - which can lead to heart failure. If you're 'lucky' to survive this you may think the worst is over. These symptoms die down, meanwhile your internal organs are being trashed. The poisons destroy the liver and kidneys. Finally you die of 'massive organ failure'. All the time you are lucid and can feel everything that is happening to you, right up to the last convulsion.

Truth is there is no known cure for Amanita mushroom poisoning (caused by choleriform). In some cases even complete blood transfusions, dialysis, and liver and kidney transplants can't help. And it only takes one or two mushrooms to kill a healthy adult. Your chances of dying is generally around 20-30%, which increases depending on how much you eat.

So the news that the six people have survived is amazing. Their story is a model in how not to collect mushrooms. One guy picked them and handed them round to his friends. From experience I have seen this happen to others. Bits break off, mushrooms get mixed with others in the collecting basket. They lose track of what exactly they have picked and where they found it. The point is his friends couldn't check the provinance of each mushroom. Also as a group you always have one idiot that doesn't check every detail of what they are selecting. I don't trust anyone apart from myself, and I don't give myself the benefit of the doubt. They wanted to pick Agaricus Campestris (the 'meadow mushroom' or 'csiperke' in Hungarian), which looks like an enormous version of your standard shop bought brown mushrooms. But someone managed to mistake the Death Cap for one of those and added it (or more than one) to the basket.

There are normally clear differences between them. The two most important is that at the foot of the Death Cap is a white sack (as in the picture) and their gills are pretty white. So also pick up the whole mushroom right from the very base, if it has anything around it's feet, don't even chance it. And don't believe any rubbish about poisonous mushrooms smelling bad or anything else. Truth is a lot of poisonous mushrooms taste wonderful. This is how Claudius, the Roman emperor, was thought to have been murdered by including the poisonous Amanita phalloides in a dish of his favourite mushrooms, the rather similar, Amanita caesarea (Caesar's Mushroom).

Each year the Death Cap poisons about 25-30 people in Hungary, with local death rates of about 20% (>50% for children). This is just the start of the Mushroom picking season, so let's hope it focusses everyone's attention.

So your Hungarian word is 'halálosztó' meaning 'bringer of death' or 'death dealer', from halál (death) and osztó ('dealer' as in a game of cards). If you're out picking, and especially if you are just starting to master the art, double check every little detail, don't be dealt a bum hand!

p.s. Bad joke warning ('fa vicc' in Hungarian) Why did the vegetables like to go to Mr. Mushroom's house for dinner? Because he was a fun-gi.