This week our culinary experience came to life at Eat Street, an Asian style food market on Hamilton Wharf. Musicians, artists, crafters and chefs display their skills under fairy lit allyways surrounded by shipping containers. If I really wanted to, I could easily have cut short our 52 week adventure, and simply have visited Eat Street one Friday evening and covered at least half of our destinations. From Poulet to Poffertjie, Malaysia to Morocco and every possible Asian flavour in between, Eat Street offers cheap eats to the whole family in a vibrant, colourful and entertaining dining hub on the banks of the Brisbane River.
Our mission was to track down Hungary. We found them nestled between Vietnamese Bahn Mi and Belgium Waffles. Langos Hungarian Food and Snacks serves Hungarian street food easily eaten by hand - so don't expect Goulash, Gulyasleves or Palocleves. Rather indulge in Palacsinta (Transylvanian herb and cheese pancakes), Lepeny ( stuffed pastries) and Langos ( Hungarian fried flat bread with garlic, tomato, onions, sour cream and bacon). The stall was very busy, but the service swift and turnaround quick. This particular precinct of the market featured a performance stage with local musos playing retro-themed music, and a bar serving a variety of bevies, including wines from boutique wineries as far south as the Coonawarra. It was a beautiful evening with clear skies and not a breath of wind. This made outdoor dining even more pleasurable (together with the amazing cityscape views and free parking). The ten of us (all the Browns, Phil, my mum and sister plus three Grevilles) found a cosy corner behind the stage. With cable spools as stools and an astro-turf covered shipping pallet as a table, we shared our platters full of food and buckets full of facts:
Water polo featured prominently: Hungary is considered the world's top power in the history of the game, having won 15 Olympic medals (of which 10 were gold, thank you Nielen). While licking sour-cream from his fingers, Phil related the history of the "Blood in the Water" (Hungarian: melbourne-i vérfürdő, "Blood bath of Melbourne") water polo match at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 between Hungary and The USSR, which left blood pouring from Erin Zador's eye after being punched by Russian player Valentin Prokopov. Riots between the spectators erupted and chaos ensued. This fact provided the perfect segue for Doeks (tearing another piece of lepeny from the the platter): Hungary has won Nobel Prizes in every category, except Peace! Sticking to the "water" theme, Louise ( trying to establish the difference between lepeny and palacsinta) had facts about the spa-culture in Hungary. Whether you simply want to relax, or are searching for a gentle cure, Hungary has over 1000 thermal springs, and enough spa accommodation for 300,000 visitors at the same time. The geological features of the Carpathian Basin below Hungary are such that the earth's crust is very thin, so waters rise easily to the surface, hence the abundance of bubbling hot springs. Finn (at this stage indulging in a Hungarian version of a jam filled doughnut) had facts on the 3-dimensional combination puzzle invented by Erno Rubik in 1974. In 1980 it won "Game of the Year" and today over 400 million Rubik Cubes have been sold worldwide - at least 20 of them in different sizes are lying in Boetie's room. Speaking of which...Boet of course analysed the flag and named the national animal: the mythical bird, Turul . Then my mum (now quite comfortable with her unusual surrounds!) had facts about the Herend Porcelain Manufactory, which specialises in luxury hand painted and gilded fine porcelain. Andrew ( quenching his thirst with a local home brew) informed us that Hungarian is one of the few European languages that is not part of the Indo-European family. It is an agglutinative language. The Hungarian name for the language is Magyar. The word "Magyar" is also occasionally used as an English word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group, or to the language. ( He also cheekily interjected with some fake facts....did you know the famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt invented Listerine....). And before I forget to mention Keith's fact (again...)...he informed us that goulash is actually a soup, not a stew.
And I had the opportunity to share my passion for one of the world's most famous sweet wines: Tokaji ....Elixir of the Tzars and Wine of Kings. It was Tokaji wine, laced with cyanide that was used in an attempt to assassinate Rasputin. The attempt failed miserably, and the assassins eventually had to resort to the gun.....
Traditional Hungarian cuisine is comfort food. To understand the cuisine, it is important to look into the past. The original nomadic lifestyle is apparent in the abundance of meat and the variety of dishes cooked over an open fire. Today's Hungarian cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Asiatic components mixed with Germanic, Italian, and Slavic elements. The food of Hungary can be considered a melting pot of the continent, with its own original cuisine from the Magyar people.
There are 69,157 residents who claim Hungarian ancestry. Two waves of migration are responsible for people from Hungary settling in Australia: Post WWII and the Hungarian revolution of 1956 ( hence the drama at the Melbourne Olympics!).
Our penultimate destination is a toss-up between 3 possibilities...you'll have to wait and see where we end up!
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