A Ukrainian friend came by to share a cup of coffee. I served some baklava, a cake, some crackers , and placed a chunk of Manchego cheese on the table.
“Ah, salo!” the Ukrainian friend commented, eyeing the cheese.
When Ukrainians Meet
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
MMMM Manchego, prince among cheeses…
LikeLike
But since it wasn’t salo, I think my guest was disappointed. 🙂
LikeLike
I’ve just realized that Salo = Szalonna. My father and grandfather always used to eat that “thing”, and they actually liked it. They actually chose it over real meat. Now both of them are dead. I’ve always hated it and I’m still alive :-D.
LikeLike
You are absolutely right. Ukrainian food is the most unhealthy in the world. My Ukrainian grandparents died before the age of 60 of cardiovascular disease. And my Jewish great grandparents lived until almost 90.
LikeLike
In Poland it’s called słonina and not really eaten by itself but more used as a seasoning in some dishes (I have seen people eating it on its own in Hungary).
And the Hungarian bar for unhealthy (but delicious) food would be pretty tough to beat.
LikeLike
“In Poland it’s called słonina”
– This sounds like “elephant meat.” 🙂
LikeLike
Slanina in Romanian. It’s usually eaten either by itself(fried or not), on sandwiches or as cooking fat.
LikeLike
“(I have seen people eating it on its own in Hungary).”
I hope at least they didn’t eat it with a Swiss army knife and wrapped it up in used newspaper, or else I will virtually sink in shame :-).
LikeLike
“I hope at least they didn’t eat it with a Swiss army knife and wrapped it up in used newspaper”
How did you guess?
LikeLike
I’ll also mention the most memorable szalonna eater saw I saw was an old guy in the lobby of a bathhouse (Rudas IIRC) who used his little knife and thumb to cut off pieces and plowed through a hunk that seemed about six inches wide, twelve inches long and about an inch thick.
It was an impressive feat.
LikeLike
“How did you guess?”
Old folks do that quite frequently :-). They also often eat raw brown onion as a side dish, so the smell is usually incredible. That was the way how the peasantry ate their food while they were working on the fields, and that’s what these old people learned as “table manners” when they were kids.
The Rudas Bath House didn’t let in women until 2006, since then Tuesday is the women’s day (the decision was followed by a public uproar), but I recently read they wanted to cease it again. When I hear stories like yours about the old guy eating his salo, I’m not that sad about it.
LikeLike
“They also often eat raw brown onion as a side dish, so the smell is usually incredible. ”
– I love that. When I’m alone. 🙂
LikeLike
“This sounds like “elephant meat.””
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks so!
People gave me very weird looks when I volunteered that (I thought it was a metaphoric name like gołąbki ‘little pigeons’ for cabbage rolls). Apparently though it’s derived from ‘salted’…..
LikeLike
“People gave me very weird looks when I volunteered that (I thought it was a metaphoric name like gołąbki ‘little pigeons’ for cabbage rolls)”
– We cook golubtsy, too . I have no idea where the name comes from (can it be from Polish??). To me it always sounded like it came from “golubchik” which is a term of endearment, meaning “darling” or “little pigeon.”
I now want to eat pigeons.
LikeLike
I looked up golubtsy on your blog, and we also have something similar called stuffed cabbage, however we usually eat it with sour cream.
LikeLike
@Stille
Do you know Transylvanian cabbage stew? I wonder if people know it in the parts of Romania other than Transylvania, as in Hungary it’s still a very popular dish.
LikeLike
@Stille
I posted a question to you if you know Transylvanian cabbage stew, but it was posted to the thread above by accident. We have another popular dish from Transylvania the “brassoi apropecsenye” – in English I only found it as “roast á la Brasov”, but it’s a very lame translation. It’s one of my favourite dishes. It looks like this: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT9lMjT7CQjxYZjXMgHPufcr_QMvDXUiiNPfkz0yIgEhGG8qxin
LikeLike
@aglaonika I know the soup but not the roast.
LikeLike
But I’m sure you would love my goulash. 🙂
LikeLike
Yeah, I’m sure too :-).
LikeLike
I’d really appreciate a good goulash recipe
LikeLike
@Stille
People in Hungary usually fight quite hard about the recipe of the perfect goulash. I usually make mixed bean goulash with noodles as I think it’s superior to any other kind of goulash, but i’m sure there are a lot of people out there who’d just shut me up.
LikeLike
Goulash or porkolt? IME in Hungary goulash is a soup (not so different from beef stew) while porkolt (umlauts over the o’s) is more what people call goulash in other places.
I make a very nice and fairly unhealthy pork porkolt (with small bits of smoked salo added at the end).
LikeLike
Goulash is the soup indeed, while pörkölt is a main dish which is eaten with a side dish. People in other countries usually think pörkölt is goulash, and they don’t even know what goulash really is, and many of them are surprised when they are served a bowl of soup in a restaurant. The Hungarians would love your pörkölt, especially with the smoked salo. The most unhealthy type of pörkölt is made of beef tripe, and there’s another type that is made of pig feet. There’s another traditional dish made of pig feet, the pork jelly (kocsonya), maybe you know that too.
LikeLike
@aglaonika: Heh, I imagine. Traditional dishes tend to work like that. I amend my statement to “I’d really appreciate some good goulash recipes.”
@cliff arroyo Yep, the goulashes I’ve seen were stews too. The recipe my family uses is pretty much beef stew in a tomato/paprika base, with potatoes and fried onions. I suspect this might get aglaonika to declare me an abomination tho.
LikeLike
I put my goulash over mashed potatoes, so it’s definitely not soup.
LikeLike
@aglaonika again: Damn, now I’m wondering about tripe porkolt. Tripe soup is my favourite soup, but it’s creamy/vinegary rather than spicy, although it’s eaten with a hot pepper on the side.
LikeLike
@Stille
Here is the recipe of the traditional goulash (soup), and you are definitely not an abomination :-).
Ingredients: 400 g beef shank or chuck 20 mm cubed, 1-2 onion minced, 1 spoonful oil, 1 spoonful paprika powder, 1 clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon of caraway seed and black pepper, salt, 1-3 bay leaf, 1-2 carrot diced, 1 green pepper chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, celery leaf, parsley chopped, 1 parsnip diced, 2 potatoes cubed
Cut the onion into small pieces and brown it in hot oil. Add the chopped meat and stir until well browned, powder it with paprika powder and stir well. Add fast a little water a stir more well. Add salt, the clove of garlic, the caraway seeds, black pepper, bay leaf and tomatoes, a little water and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Add enough water to cover the meat well. Add carrot, parsnip, green pepper, celery leaf, parsley and bring to a boil. Turn to low heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add potatoes and more water to the soup. Salt to taste. Simmer until potatoes and meat are well cooked.
LikeLike
OK, people, since when is goulash a soup?? And if it is a soup, WTF is it that I have been serving this entire time?
LikeLike
“Ingredients: 400 g beef shank or chuck 20 mm cubed, 1-2 onion minced, 1 spoonful oil, 1 spoonful paprika powder, 1 clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon of caraway seed and black pepper, salt, 1-3 bay leaf, 1-2 carrot diced, 1 green pepper chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, celery leaf, parsley chopped, 1 parsnip diced, 2 potatoes cubed”
– It is VERY similar to how I make it but I let the water evaporate to use it over mashed potatoes.
LikeLike
“Tripe soup is my favourite soup, but it’s creamy/vinegary rather than spicy”
A Polish friend ordered ciorba de burta (sp?) in Bucaresti and freaked out, not because of the tripe (a favorite of his) but the fact that it was cooked in milk (Polish trip is kind of a vegetable soup with lots of marjoram and black pepper).
LikeLike
@Clarissa
The meaning of the word goulash is: (beef) soup made by cowherds, so it’s been a soup since the beginning of times :-). The dish you made is most likely pörkölt, as people who don’t have Hungarian roots usually mix the two things up.
LikeLike
I remember how my Russian husband put our entire marriage at risk by referring to borscht as “soup.” That was a very ugly experience. 🙂
“The dish you made is most likely pörkölt”
– There is no way I will be able to pronounce pörkölt.
LikeLike
@aglaonika: noted and thanks!
@Clarissa: well, considering what Cliff and aglaonika said, I’d guess you were making porkolt
@Cliff Yep, you spelled it right. If your friend didn’t buy utter shit tripe soup tho (which is v. much possible) it should’ve been cooked with lots of cream rather than in milk. It’s this mix of cream, savouriness from the tripe&bones and vinegar sourness that really makes the thing for me
LikeLike
People, you are making me hungry here and I’ve just come back from a huge celebratory lunch at a Mexican restaurant.
How is a person supposed to lose weight? :-))))))))
LikeLike
This is how the classical goulash looks like:
LikeLike
“This is how the classical goulash looks like:”
– OK, this is not even remotely similar to mine. Mine comes out dark brown.
Are there any other interesting Hungarian dishes?
LikeLike
“I remember how my Russian husband put our entire marriage at risk by referring to borscht as “soup.” That was a very ugly experience. ”
Wow. Until now I was 100% convinced that borscht was a kind of soup :-).
LikeLike
“Wow. Until now I was 100% convinced that borscht was a kind of soup”
– Yeah, when Russians make it. Bleh. After eating my borscht, you will be crawling away from the table, unable to stuff anything else inside yourself. This is the food of poor peasants who could only eat one hot dish a day. So It had to be thick enough to carry them through the whole day of work.
LikeLike
“Mine comes out dark brown.”
I guess this is how your “goulash” looks like (it is beef porkolt in reality which is also a traditional Hungarian dish):
LikeLike
“I guess this is how your “goulash” looks like (it is beef porkolt in reality which is also a traditional Hungarian dish):”
– yes!!! This is it! Wow, I had no idea I even knew how to cook this dish! I now feel very good about myself. 🙂
LikeLike
“Yeah, when Russians make it. Bleh. After eating my borscht, you will be crawling away from the table, unable to stuff anything else inside yourself.”
Yes I’m sure, the whole Eastern European region is full of dishes that are incredibly filling. However the Russians hacked Wikipedia, as it also says borscht is a soup.
LikeLike
“Yes I’m sure, the whole Eastern European region is full of dishes that are incredibly filling. However the Russians hacked Wikipedia, as it also says borscht is a soup.”
– This is so offensive to my culture.
🙂 🙂 I’m kidding, I’m kidding, it’s just that Ukrainians can get into hours-long debates about the proper way of making borscht. It’s hilarious.
LikeLike
“yes!!! This is it! Wow, I had no idea I even knew how to cook this dish! I now feel very good about myself. ”
Next time add a little red wine to it after the meat is stewed just a few minutes before the dish is ready, as it will make it taste superior.
LikeLike
“Next time add a little red wine to it after the meat is stewed just a few minutes before the dish is ready, as it will make it taste superior.”
– Great advice! I can now tell people “A real Hungarian taught me this.” 🙂
LikeLike
“If your friend didn’t buy utter shit tripe soup tho”
He liked it once he got over the shock (I did too) but it was just completely unexpected, tripe cooked with any kind of dairy product is just profoundly weird to Polish people.
My favorite things in Romania were a kind of potato and bean puree (with paprika) and pork cooked with paprika and black olives (a combination I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years but which was wonderful).
LikeLike
“Next time add a little red wine to it after the meat is stewed just a few minutes before the dish is ready”
I add some (okay a lot) of wine in the beginning (to pick up the solids from searing the meat) and then some more at the end.
LikeLike
“I add some (okay a lot) of wine in the beginning (to pick up the solids from searing the meat) and then some more at the end.”
Well, it’s better to do it twice than not at all, the most important thing is not to forget it :-).
LikeLike
@Cliff I haven’t heard of any of those dishes. There’s a bean puree thing that’s often decorated with paprika (or pickled red peppers) but it doesn’t usually contain potatoes. The pork thing I’ve never heard about. What area of Romania was this in?
LikeLike
“here’s a bean puree thing that’s often decorated with paprika (or pickled red peppers) but it doesn’t usually contain potatoes”
At the time I thought it was all bean, but when I found an online recipe it said there were potatoes in it…
I’ve only been in Bucuresti in Romania (sort of a messy train wreck of a city but I love it). I really want to go to Constanta (and Brasov) but I don’t know when that’s going to happen.
LikeLike
Okay, I hate wordpress. There are two questions to you Stille at the end of the comment thread above.
LikeLike
“Ingredients: 400 g beef shank or chuck 20 mm cubed, 1-2 onion minced, 1 spoonful oil, 1 spoonful paprika powder, 1 clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon of caraway seed and black pepper, salt, 1-3 bay leaf, 1-2 carrot diced, 1 green pepper chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, celery leaf, parsley chopped, 1 parsnip diced, 2 potatoes cubed”
There is a native dish in a not-too-distant land from Clarissa where they make a few adjustments …
They leave out the caraway seed, parsnip, potatoes, celery, and possibly the carrots, adding tomato puree, kidney beans, black beans, various chile powders, onion powder, and about double the paprika, with possibly a bit of cocoa powder to adjust for regional taste.
They gave this ambrosial concoction a name known throughout North America …
Chili.
🙂
LikeLike
“hey gave this ambrosial concoction a name known throughout North America …
Chili.”
I tend to make way too much of anything when I cook so I’ve learned how to make new things from leftovers.
I make chilli out of leftover porkolt by adding beans, tomatoes, cumin, some honey and some balsamic vinegar. Then I serve it over rice (rather than pasta for the porkolt).
LikeLike
I don’t make chili because N gets a tortured look on his face when I suggest it. Maybe it could be good if I tinkered with it, though.
LikeLike