Zingerman`s Bakehouse Turns to Hungary For

For immediate release
January 31, 2013
Contact: Pete Sickman-Garner
[email protected], 734.904.0644
Zingerman’s Bakehouse Turns to Hungary For Inspiration
As we move into 2013, visitor’s to Zingerman’s Bakehouse might be forgiven if they think they’ve been transported
to a cukraszda in Budapest. Tucked among the traditionally baked breads, pastries and cakes that have been Zingerman’s Bakehouse staples for 20 years, you’ll find such seemingly exotic foods as Flodni, Rigó Jancsi, and Pogácsa.
Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo, the managing partners of Zingerman’s Bakehouse, began the exploration of
Hungarian foodways three years ago. Looking for new avenues to expand their baking horizons, they made a plan
to investigate the baking traditions of countries that might not be familiar to an American audience. “In choosing
a baking tradition, we needed a place with a long, deep history of really great food but one that maybe doesn’t get
the credit it deserves. Hungary definitely fit that bill.”
After an extensive research trip to Hungary in the Fall of 2011 Amy, Frank and co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses Ari Weinzweig were convinced that their choice to learn about Hungarian foodways was an
excellent one.
What followed were a series of trips over the next year, the most recent being to Transylvania in October 2012.
After each trip, they delved into history and cookbooks and drew upon what they’d learned on their travels in
order to recreate for Zingerman’s guests the amazing foods they found across Hungary. In 2011, the Bakehouse debuted the Rigó Jancsi and two other tortes followed from there. Today, as many as 15 traditional Hungarian foods
might grace the Bakehouse shelves on any given day, from traditional soups to breads flavored with paprika, to
retés (strudels) and many desserts. They are offering Hungarian tastings as well as teaching people how to make
traditional Hungarian foods in their hands-on teaching bakery, BAKE! This fall they’ve teamed up with the folks at
Zingerman’s Food Tours to offer guided travel in October 2013 to the source of Hungarian food.
When asked where they’ll go from here, Amy and Frank replied that they are considering an annual trip to Hungary
to study in-depth. They also intend to focus on particular areas of Hungarian cuisine like Jewish-Hungarian food,
the cuisine of the Roma, home cooking, and traditional Hungarian recipes transformed by modern chefs. They also
note that they are beginning to plan visits to Ann Arbor from renown Hungarian bakers, chefs and artisanal food
producers.
For more information about Hungarian foods at Zingerman’s Bakehouse or to receive updates or schedule interviews, please contact Pete Sickman-Garner, Marketing Manager, at [email protected] or 734.904.0644.
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Zingerman’s Bakehouse was founded in 1992 when Zingerman’s Delicatessen founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul
Saginaw decided they could bake better bread for their Deli sandwiches than they could buy locally, and they
teamed up with old friend Frank Carollo to create the second of eight businesses in the Zingerman’s Community
of Businesses. The Bakehouse added a pastry department in 1994 and in 2000 former pastry manager Amy Emberling joined Frank as co-managing partner. Today the Bakehouse is recognized as one of the finest bakeries in the
country and sells bread and pastries at all Zingerman’s locations (including via mail at www.zingermans.com) and
at retail locations throughout Michigan.
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Rigó Jancsi
[pronounced ree-go yon-chee]
Esterházy Torta
During his life, Paul III Anton,
Prince Esterházy was perhaps
the richest man in all of Europe, not actually holding the
title of King. Maybe this is why
the cake named after him is so
rich and luxurious to eat. Our
version of this famous torta
has layers of toasted walnut
cake filled with a magnificent
mixture of vanilla bean pastry
cream, fresh whipped cream
and more toasted walnuts, decorated with vanilla and dark
chocolate poured fondant in a
distinctive design used specifically for Esterházy cakes.
A traditional Hungarian coffeehouse torte named after Rigó
Jancsi (1858-1927), a famous
Hungarian violinist who seduced and married Clara Ward,
Princesse de Caraman-Chimay
and former Detroit native. It’s
two light layers of chocolate
sponge cake filled with chocolate rum whipped cream and
iced with apricot glaze and
dark chocolate ganache.
Dobos Torta
[pronounced doh-bosh]
This traditional Hungarian coffeehouse torte was created in
1887 by well known chef and
confectioner József C. Dobos
(1847–1924). It’s five thin layers of vanilla sponge cake and
dark chocolate butter cream,
all topped with pieces of crispy
dark caramel. Taste one of
Hungary’s most famous tortas!
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Flodni
[pronounced poh-gotcha]
The word flodni (fluden in Yiddish) refers to what is mostly
a forgotten category of European desserts which were layered and filled. It’s also the name
of a Hungarian specialty, as well
as a traditional Jewish holiday pastry,
which is just as it should be, multiple layers with several
different fillings. We’re really enjoying the buttery pastry layered with three distinct fillings: honey poppy seed,
raisin walnut and cinnamon apple.
The all purpose roll of
Hungary. They are a cross
between what we know
as a scone and a biscuit which
can be eaten for breakfast, as a
snack, part of an appetizer with
korozott (Hungarian liptauer), or with soup. Ours are rich
and full of flavor, made with Zingerman’s Creamery farm
cheese, sweet butter, and fresh eggs. Also available garnished with a mixture of seeds (poppy, sesame and caraway seeds).
Almond Kifli Cookies
An irresistible Hungarian
treat. The name kifli originally referred to the crescent shape and to savory
breads in this shape (it was
the precursor to the croissant!).
It is available in many parts of Europe by different
names. This particular cookie is very popular in Hungary
and Austria today. Ours are made with ground almonds
and real vanilla bean. They’re addictive, so watch out!
Sweet Rétesek (aka strudel)
To make our rétes (ray-tesh), we take our own fresh
dough and carefully hand-stretch it over an 8 ft. table
until it’s thin enough to see through. Then it’s folded
and layered with melted butter and a sprinkle of cake
crumbs, wrapped around fresh fillings, and baked until golden brown. Our rétesek (ray-te-shek) serve eight.
We’re currently offering apricot preserves with vanilla
bean cream cheese.
Savory Rétesek (aka strudel)
To make our rétes (ray-tesh), we take our own fresh
dough and carefully hand-stretch it over an 8 ft. table
until it’s thin enough to see through. Then it’s folded
and layered with melted butter and a sprinkle of bread
crumbs, wrapped around fresh fillings, and baked until
golden brown. Our savory rétesek (ray-te-shek) serve
eight. Try our traditional Hungarian flavors: cabbage
with goose fat or potato with bacon.
Lunch specials at the Bakehouse
Amy’s Hungarian Tribute
We couldn’t pack more flavor in this sandwich if we tried.
Our new soft pretzel bun with Hungarian cured bacon
and smoked pork loin, liptauer cheese spread, pickled
Hungarian peppers, shaved onion and whole grain mustard. Available Mon-Sat.
Soups
Gabor’s Bean & Ham and Katalin’s Kohlrabi on Tuesdays
Gulyás (gool-yosh) on Wednesdays.
Lángos (lon-gohsh)
A savory fried bread and popular Hungarian street
food. Ours is brushed with garlic and sour cream, sprinkled with fresh dill, topped with Hickory Smoked Ham,
Marieke 1-year Gouda cheese, and a dusting of paprika!
Available on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11:30 AM to
1:30 PM.
Barches - Hungarian ChalLah bread
Barches (bar-kess) is a traditional Hungarian bread like
challah, but made with milk. Our version is mixed with
Hungarian sweet paprika giving it a warm orange color
and a faint spice note that builds on your tongue as you
eat it. It’s really enjoyable all by itself or try it alongside
a hearty soup or stew. It could add a great layer of flavor
to your sandwich creations as well.
Available as an occasional “special bake”.
Give us a call and reserve your special loaves.
Next bake:
January 25th & 26th, 2013
, MI
anN ArboR
April 5th & 6th, 2013
June 28th & 29th, 2013
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Hungarian Coffeehouse Tortes
Taste of Hungary with Amy & Frank
In the late 1800s Hungary enjoyed a coffeehouse culture
of delicious fancy tortes and great coffee. Philosophers,
artists, musicians and politicians gathered in coffeehouses to share ideas and camaraderie while eating cake!
We’ll teach you to make two of the classics. Rigo Jancsi -- a
chocolate rum sponge cake filled with chocolate whipped
cream, iced with chocolate ganache and Esterhazy Cake
– walnut meringue layers with vanilla cream icing. It’s a
classic sold at all traditional Hungarian bakeries. Join us
for some Hungarian flavor.
For more than a year now, many of us at the Bakehouse
have been eating and baking our way through the rich culture and history of Hungarian food. We’re so excited to
share it with you. Join us to find out how this fascinating
mix of traditions came to be, what food Hungary is most
known for and why we became interested in it in the first
place. You’ll taste many of the Hungarian specialties made
right here at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, led by Amy Emberling
and Frank Carollo, co-managing partners, bakers and Hungarian travelers. This class is a presentation and tasting.
Espresso Torta
Known in Hungary as kardinális szelet, this classic dessert is
sure to please the most discriminating pastry and coffee lover and makes an impressive showing at dinner parties. This
pastry is built of three layers of crisp meringue and sponge
cake separated by whipped cream and Creme Fraiche that is
intensely infused with espresso couleur, a syrupy extract of
deeply caramelized sugar and freshly made espresso. You’ll
make every component of the cardinal slice in this hands
on class. The espresso couleur is guaranteed to become any
coffee addict’s favorite pantry staple!
Hungarian Food Tour
Bakehouse Turns 20! What’s next?
Come celebrate with us! What would Frank and Amy,
Bakehouse partners, want to do on our birthday other
than bake? Join them to celebrate 20 years of baking at
this one time only class. During the evening they’ll tell
stories from our past and teach you several new Hungarian recipes which we hope to be a part of our future. In
this class you’ll learn: pogácsa, the quintessential Hungarian roll which is a cross between a biscuit and a scone and
flavored with goose or pork cracklins’, gulyás, a beef and
vegetable soup made the traditional Hungarian way and
almond kifli, an irresistible cookie. You’ll leave class with
an authentic Hungarian meal to serve at home. Just add
the Hungarian folk music.
Noodling about Strudelling
Learn to make traditional strudel, also known as rétes in
Hungary, at home! Remember when you were little and
the gym teacher pulled out a compact plastic bundle and
magically unfurled it into a huge parachute that the whole
class could fit under? Well, you’ll have that experience all
over again when we take a grapefruit size piece of strudel
dough and stretch it out to cover a 24 sq. ft. table. We’ll
make sweet and savory fillings to fill your dough. This is
just about the most fun you can have making food.
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Travel w
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Oct. 15-25, 2013
We’ve been blown away by the amazing artisanal food of
Hungary and by the warm welcome of its people, and we
want to share them with you! Hungary has an incredibly rich
and varied food tradition reaching back at least 1500 years,
including an Eastern European Jewish influence. From the
regional cheeses, wines, cured meats, and bountiful produce, to the incredible breads, pastries, and elegant multilayered tortas, Hungary has it all. Travel with us to Hungary
and find out how much more there is to Hungarian food
than its excellent paprika!
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GetTing Acquainted with Sólet by Zingerman’s Bakehouse Managing Partner Amy Emberling
At the Bakehouse we’re studying Hungarian foodways, which include
a rich collection of Jewish recipes. Jewish communities have existed
in Hungary since at least the 1100s (which we know from written court
records). Jews were treated relatively better in Hungary than in many
other European countries (having even been granted full rights of citizenry) until World War II when they were the last Eastern European
Jews to be targeted by the Nazi extermination policy. Since that campaign came nearer the end of the war a greater number of people survived and returned to Hungary where they appeared to live as nonJews during communist rule.
In the twenty-some years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Jewish
community in Hungary has become more visible and vibrant. Budapest
currently has the largest and most active Jewish community in Eastern Europe. The result of 900 years of Jewish/Magyar co-existence is
a surprising appearance of Jewish foods as standards in the Hungarian
repertoire–latkes, matzo ball soup and cholent to name three–even
called by their Yiddish names! Discovering all of this has certainly been
eye-opening.
This Magyar tale is about our acquaintance with the traditional Hungarian and Jewish bean dish called sólet in Hungarian and cholent in
Yiddish. It is traditionally simmered overnight for 12 hours or more and
eaten for lunch on the Sabbath to conform with Jewish laws that prohibit cooking on that day. The pot is brought to boil on Friday before
the Sabbath begins and placed in a slow oven until the following day.
There are many variations of the dish but the basic ingredients of cholent are meat, beans and barley. It’s not dissimilar in style of cooking
from the famous French dish cassoulet or American baked beans.
This spring a number of us from the bakery visited Budapest to continue our studies of Hungarian foodways. Sólet was on our itinerary.
Finally I could have first hand experience of this classic dish. No one
else on the trip had any prior knowledge of sólet or any personal connection to it but somehow it became the hit of the trip. Who would’ve
thought? We ate it in three different venues - only one considered a
Jewish restaurant - and thoroughly enjoyed them. The sólet at Kadar’s
restaurant was considered the best but more about that later. Not only
did sólet grab the group’s tastebuds’ attention, but it was the first Hungarian food made by any of us upon our return. Additionally, the most
prized souvenir from the trip is a well used ceramic cholent pot which
I carried back with the reverence and care usually reserved for a long
lost family bible or art treasure. Since we are now all sólet enthusiasts
we decided that the cherished pot would reside at the bakery to be
shared by all of us when the mood for cholent hit.
Our first sólet encounter was at Kadar’s in Budapest, which opened
in the 1950s and is famous for its solet - although it serves many other
things and in no way is known as a Jewish restaurant. Kadar is a Hungarian surname. The restaurant is tiny. It’s crammed, and it’s plain. The
owner, tall, broad and imposing, is taking orders and bringing out the
food. It’s a down to business experience. Our server was a middle-aged
woman who’d been there longer than the owner, close to 30 years, and
claimed to be better than him at making the sólet.
Soon after we ordered, the sólet started arriving. Three separate plates
came each with beans and one with a baked egg, one with roast goose
and one with a pork chop! Yes, sólet with pork. There were many
versions of different pork cuts with sólet on the menu, a true intermixing of cuisines. The beans and barley were moist and moderately
seasoned—quite satisfying! The group seemed excited about this first
encounter. Nina Huey (née Plasencia) loved the dish, claiming that it
spoke to her Hispanic beans and pork heritage.
Our next sólet encounter came at Fülemüle, a restaurant known for
serving Jewish dishes as well as Hungarian standards. It is owned by
András Singer, a Jewish restaurateur committed to serving delicious
and refined food. Nina, so taken with her first taste of sólet, ordered
the Kind David sólet, which came with roast goose, smoked meat and
baked eggs. It was big enough for at least three people and was quite
delicious, especially the smoked meat. The beans and barely were a bit
less moist however. We were getting a hint that moisture was going to
be one of the keys to the sólet’s success. You might be wondering about
all of the goose being served. It’s very prevalent in Hungarian cuisine,
including foie gras and Jews were historically the goose farmers of the
country.
Our final encounter with sólet was at the family owned Thummerer
Winery, northeast of Budapest. Sólet in a winery? You bet. We came to
Thummerer to cook, bake and taste wine for the day with the chef András and his wife Éva, the daughter of the winery founder. The dynamic
and talented pair play a very important role in running the winery
now. We were using a wood-burning oven to roast a goose, and then
the next dish András demonstrated for us was sólet with his own cured
pork belly. Yes, once again sólet and pork! It became clear that his associations with sólet had absolutely no Jewish connections. This sólet
was lighter in the paprika, heavier on the salt (a result of the cured bacon) and wetter than Kadar’s, once again pointing out to us that achieving the perfect consistency would be something we’d have to work on.
So Kadar’s sólet turned out to be the group’s favorite version. Did it
have the advantage of being the first we tasted? Perhaps…but perhaps
it was years of experience that lead to a delicious version. We’ll have
to go back and taste everyone’s again.
What now? Rumor has it that my sólet education can continue right
here in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor food blogger Mary Bilyeu let me know
that a local temple does a cholent Kiddush every January. I’ll be there
to compare, contrast and learn.
Eating and writing about sólet has its limits though. I want to move
into hands-on practice. I’ve got the red beans, a bag of barley, paprika
I carried back from Budapest and the blessed sólet pot. With a trip to
Zingerman’s Delicatessen to buy a nice piece of smoked meat I’ll be
ready to make my fist sólet. How exciting!
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Food connects us across time and cultures in surprising ways. At
the Bakehouse we’ve been learning about Hungarian foods over
the past year, including a remarkably rich collection of Hungarian
Jewish dishes. On a recent trip to Budapest to learn more, I was
surprised to find myself reminded of the food my Jewish grandmother made in New York; latkes, matzo ball soup, and cholent
are standard on Hungarian menus, even with their Yiddish names.
The tables were also set with the standard Eastern European
accompaniments of pickles and seltzer water, which were part of
my childhood New York meals. It was an unexpected and welcome
homecoming for me.
Jews have lived in Hungary for at least 900 years with long periods
of peace and prosperity. They were protected by many kings and
governments and eventually were given full citizenship. World
War II brought the same demise to Hungarian Jews as it did other
European Jews albeit much later in the war since Hungary was an
ally of Germany and maintained its independence until the spring
of 1944. A number of Holocaust survivors returned to Hungary only
to repress their religious beliefs under Communism. In the twentysome years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, the community
has become more visible and vibrant—Budapest has the largest
and most active Jewish community in Eastern Europe.
In Budapest, there are several restaurants that specialize in Jewish
food– Fulemule and Rosenstein’s are perhaps the most famous.
Each offers delicious versions of cholent, matzo ball soup, latkes
and Hungarian Jewish specialties, which often feature goose.
There are Jewish bakeries. Their most distinctive offering is a dessert called Flodni. It has layers of walnuts, poppy and apple fillings
separated by a flaky pastry like a pie crust. A rabbi’s daughter,
Rachel Raj, owns a traditional bakery serving flodni as well as a
modern cake decorating business. There’s even a restaurant, not
at all considered a Jewish restaurant, famous for its cholent (solet
in Hungarian) called Kadar’s. My shock at this restaurant is that
cholent, which I mistakenly thought was quintessentially Jewish,
is served with everything from goose legs to pork chops! I’ll admit
that it was delicious in its many versions. The intermingling of
Jewish and Hungarian cuisines is very common.
to our guide has the second-largest seating capacity of any synagogue in the world, 3500. At the synagogue there’s a small museum,
a memorial to those who died of starvation on its premises during
WW II and a kosher restaurant nearby. On our first trip there was
even a Jewish music festival being held.
We’re making plans to bring some of these experiences back to
Ann Arbor. For the Jewish high holidays, we’ll be making flodni.
We’re working on a Hungarian version of matzo ball soup. Mr.
Rosenstein graciously shared his recipe with us. There are three
distinctive Hungarians aspects to Hungarian matzo ball soup – it’s
served in goose broth often with some goose meat; the matzo balls
are coarser in their consistency and tend to be made with broken
pieces of matzo rather than matzo meal; and they are flavored with
fresh ginger root. Finally we are considering making cholent to
have available on Saturdays at lunchtime. We’ll probably skip the
pork but maybe not.
But back to the idea that food can connect us across time and
across cultures in surprising ways. I had my unexpected homecoming in Budapest and now some of you are having yours in Ann
Arbor. After walking into our bakery or delicatessen many of you
have kindly shared your surprise and delight of being transported
back to a place or time from your past. We have learned about
your Hungarian ancestry, your favorite Hungarian foods and traditions, your family history. Thank you sharing and for making this a
culturally rich and valuable endeavor for all of us.
We have loved our visits to Hungary so much that we’re considering leading a food tour there. If you’re interested in joining us,
send us a note at [email protected]. When we set the dates
of a trip, you’ll be the first to know!
There’s lots of Jewish food to enjoy in Budapest but there’s also a
good deal of Jewish culture and history. In the Jewish quarter it’s
possible to tour the beautiful Dohany Synagogue, which according
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a book (The Cuisine of Hungary), and it’s long been one of my favorites. If I
had to move into an efficiency apartment and could only take, say, seventy
or eighty books with me, Lang’s would be one of the top picks on my list.
Which is probably one of the highest quality compliments that I could pay,
as the man had had over 3000 cookbooks in his personal collection.
by Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig
Of course, there was a lot more to George Lang than his book. The man that
I know as George Lang was actually born György Deutsch in 1924. He grew
up in an academically oriented, Jewish-Hungarian, kosher-keeping home in
the town of Skékesfehérvár, about 35 miles from Budapest. In 1944 the family was sent to labor camps by the Nazis, and his parents died in the camps.
But György got out and made his way to the U.S in 1946, where he changed
his name to George Lang. Given the literal meaning of the surname he’d
been born with—“Deutsch” means “German”—it’s not that hard to see why
he chose to change it to Lang, his mother’s maiden name. Here in the States,
he went on to become one of the country’s great restaurateurs and wrote
beautifully about Hungarian food, among other subjects. He helped open
over 300 restaurants in nearly 30 countries. In 1992 he traveled back to Budapest to renovate and restore Gundel, the Hungarian restaurant landmark
that had fallen into disrepair. He was one of the real pioneers of the restaurant world in the modern era.
As you’ll quickly be able to tell from the headline, I’ve got Hungary on my
mind, and in my heart. What follows is just a taste, a glimpse, of an incredibly interesting cuisine, a complex culture and its engaging history. In the
past few years I’ve learned a bit, but I feel like I still have about two lifetimes of learning to go. Sorry for the pun, but I’m hungry for Hungary. What
follows are a few featured “courses” from my first year of study. And our
future at Zingerman’s holds many flavorful Hungarian things to come.
There are a thousand ways to approach the complex world of Hungarian
food. My entry was many years ago through the writing of George Lang and
his 1971 classic, The Cuisine of Hungary. Even if I wasn’t yet as fascinated by
the subject as I am today, it would have been hard not to take notice. “The
subject of this book,” Lang begins, “is the cuisine and wines of a comparatively little-known country which has had the misfortune that the little that
is known about it is generally pseudo folklore with a lot of gypsies playing into the ears of contented tourists while they eat the red-hot ‘goulash.’”
Lang’s intro had me hooked, and I’ve learned quite a lot about him since
that time.
Back in the early 80’s, when we were just getting the Deli going, Lang was
one of those people known to everyone, and who clearly had enormous
positive influence on the culture of food and cooking in America. Like a
basketball-playing kid who looked up to Michael Jordan, I admired George
Lang. He was someone who seemed to have attained international success
at a level that was almost unimaginable to me. I was intrigued, but as a shy
25-year-old just getting started in the food business, I wasn’t about to pick
up the phone and call one of the most renowned of restaurant consultants.
I wish I had.
Sadly, I waited too long. George Lang passed away last summer at the age of
86. My mistake. When we opened the Deli back in 1982, he was living in New
York and was actively involved in running the classic Café des Artistes. He
stayed active in the food world up until his death. And while I truly like to
learn from everyone—eight-year-olds, world famous experts, and everyone
in between—George Lang was the sort of man I really look up to. While
many people are good at one or two things, Lang was multi-talented and
multi-faceted; he lived a life that was loaded with travels, travails, achievements and insights. He lived a long life and he clearly seems to have kept
learning through it all. From what I can tell, George Lang always had his
own way of doing things. He didn’t give in to the pressure to conform, and
he brought a lot of pleasure to other people’s lives. Writer Rozanne Gold,
who did meet Mr. Lang, said he was, “brilliant, urbane, cultured, a storyteller, clever. I believed he felt his role in daily life was to amuse and ignite
the imagination of others.” She goes on. “George Lang emanated brilliance.
Whimsy. A life of the mind and of the senses. He even invented a few of his
own.” Like I said, he seems like my kind of guy. If he’d been a bit younger,
perhaps we’d have connected and I’d have taken my first trip to Hungary
with a list of tips that he’d emailed to me before leaving.
While I’d like to have entered the world of Hungarian food with Mr. Lang
on my arm, I did so with his insight in hand. Like so many things in my life,
I suppose my admiration and interest in his work and his life started with
George Lang’s legacy is food-oriented and very rooted in culture and tradition. Here’s what the Village Voice wrote about him following an interview a few years ago: “George Lang, at 83, seems to have lived several lives,
many happy, and some incredibly difficult. Over the course of an hour or so,
Lang talked about being a child violin prodigy and eventually playing with
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. As a teenager, he was a 100-meter running
champion. Later he escaped Hungary, where his entire family perished in
the concentration camps. At 21, Lang came to New York and rented a bed
in Hell’s Kitchen while working as a dishwasher, then later as a saucier at
the Plaza and a manager at an Italian wedding factory on the Lower East
Side. He is an impressive calligrapher, a former Fulbright Scholar in Italy,
and a writer at Travel + Leisure; he ran the Four Seasons; and, of course, he
revived the Café des Artistes and became the first international restaurant
consultant. Oh, and last Christmas, he hung out with the pope. What did
you do?”
I can only smile when I tell you that he, like me, started his food service
work as a dishwasher. If I can take my work to the same sort of heights as
George Lang, I’ll feel pretty satisfied. When asked what he would have at a
theoretical last meal, George Lang gave a rather lengthy and detailed answer. Much of what he listed were dishes from his mother’s kitchen: fisherman’s soup, stuffed goose neck, sour cherry soup, layered cabbage, stuffed
peppers, plum dumplings, pancakes with apple meringue, and whippedcream strudel. “And then,” he said, “I will have what it takes to get to another world.”
Lang’s speculative last meal is just a small bit of the country’s fascinating
food and cooking, and you’ll know that just by picking up his book. The
Cuisine of Hungary isn’t a quick read: It’s nearly 500 pages long and my old
hardcover version probably weighs about a pound. Yet, as long as the book
is, Lang wrote in his introduction that “Much of the fascinating material (I’ve
researched) is too abstract or specialized, and with sadness I had to take
out much more material than I left in the book.” That alone should give you
some sense of how interesting and complex Hungarian cooking is. If a man
with the insight and intellectual ability of George Lang was so fascinated
with this food, you can assume that Hungarian cooking is no minor league
cuisine.
:INGERMANS "AKEHOUSE s 0LAZA $RIVE !NN !RBOR -) s WWWZINGERMANSBAKEHOUSECOM s You might reasonably be wondering, what drove my sudden interest in the
food of such a faraway country? Well, like so many things here, it all started
with a vision. A vision, as we define it, is written document that describes
our desired future at a particular point in time. It’s not a few short sentences; rather it’s a detailed, emotionally engaging, prose description of the
future of our dreams. A future that, once we finish writing the vision, we
fully commit to attaining. Innovative business writer Joel A. Barker said, “Vision without action is merely a dream; action without vision just passes the
time; vision with action can change the world.”
(For more on the subject of vision, see Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading,
Part 1—it’s got four different essays that detail our approach to visioning
work and explain why we’re all so adamant that it’s a great way to work.)
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At the time George Lang’s book was published in 1971 he was just a touch
older than I am now, but he’d already had a lifetime’s worth of learning
about the food and culture of his homeland. I, on the other hand, am still
very new to it. I’m not Hungarian, I’d never even visited until last fall, and
I’ve never really studied it with any degree of seriousness until the past
few years. What I’ve written about here is just a small entrée into a very
deep, very rich, and very complex world. My commitment is to continue my
learning about Hungarian cooking, to study the culture and the cuisine, and
to carry back what I learn to Zingerman’s. And all of this work stems from
a vision.
The vision in question is the one we wrote collaboratively a few years ago
for Zingerman’s Bakehouse. We (Bakehouse managing partners Frank Carollo and Amy Emberling, and my partner Paul Saginaw) came to the realization that we’d fulfilled the original long-term vision we’d had for the Bakehouse, and that it was time to write a new one. As the Zingerman’s-wide
vision year is 2020, we decided to bring the Bakehouse into that timeframe
as well.
(The Bakehouse vision is four or five pages long, and if you’d like a copy, or
a copy of the entire Zingerman’s 2020 vision, just email me at [email protected] and I’ll send it your way. )
As we were drafting the vision, we decided that one thing we wanted to
include was that by the year 2020 we’d have developed a new area of baking
specialty, something significant that we could include with the French, Italian, American and Jewish baked goods for which we were already known.
I’m not talking about running a few specials here and there; I mean an area
of very serious specialty. Which means a serious amount of studying, a
bunch of hard work, some traveling, extensive product testing and tasting,
and talking and learning from others who know more than we do. After a
good bit of discussion, and a brainstorm list that included the baking of
a dozen different countries and regions as possible options, the place we
chose for our vision was Hungary. By the year 2020 we were going to be
really good at both sweet and savory traditional Hungarian baked goods.
Why Hungary? Hungarian baking (actually Hungarian cooking in general)
is generally acknowledged to be among the finest in the world. The cuisine
and the culture draw from a hugely diverse set of influences: Asia, Austria,
Turkey, Germany, the Balkans, and Russia all come into play. Pork, poppy
seeds, pastry, and paprika predominate, and I happen to really like all of
them. We knew that if we chose to study Hungarian baking, we’d never be
bored. The food, like the country, is very complex, very interesting, and often surprising.
While I might have liked to take my first trip to Hungary with George Lang, I
feel lucky to have connected with Carolyn and Gábor Bánfalvi, as they share
his passion for Hungarian history, food, culture and cooking. Carolyn grew
up in Washington, D.C.; Gábor is a Hungarian native. He and Carolyn met
while working together on a cruise ship. They ended up getting married and
then returning to Budapest to live and raise their children. Today, Carolyn
writes about Hungarian cuisine while Gábor leads food and wine tours of
the country, taking travelers to many of the places Carolyn covers on her
blog, and in her book, Food Wine Budapest. Last fall, I had the pleasure
of spending a week with Gábor who led Frank, Amy, and I, along with our
good friend, great food writer and amazing cooking teacher, Molly Stevens,
around Budapest and the Hungarian countryside. We had a fabulous time
and Gábor and Carolyn were the perfect Magyar hosts.
In its modern state, Hungary is not a huge country. I’ll leave you to explore
the country’s history on your own, but let’s just say there are many intriguing questions about the origins of the Magyar tribes whose descendants we
know today as modern Hungarians. As George Lang wrote, “If the Hungarian
nation behaved well in the past 1,100 years, it is probably because it would
have been useless for anybody to tell them, ‘Go back where you came from.’
Nobody knew where that was—the Hungarians themselves still argue about
it.”
Hungary is about the size of Indiana, with a population of about 10,000,000
people. Its small size belies a nearly unbelievable complexity. Hungarian
food combines passion and paradox, and brings together a wide range of
different influences melded into one marvelous, almost magical cuisine.
Lest I doubt the veracity of that claim, all I really need to do is take a bite of
the goose fat and cabbage strudel, or the Rigó Jancsi torte at the Bakehouse.
Here’s what Molly said when I told her I was going to start writing about our
trip. “I find it hard to come up with anything concise to summarize my take
on Hungarian cooking. Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me was the complexity of the cuisine, and the pride and enthusiasm around it. Beyond the
enthusiasm of Gábor, I recall the determined pride of Mr. Hodi, the paprika
maker we visited, stirring that big cauldron of brick-red fish soup, or the
defiant dignity of Mr. Singer, the owner of Fulemule restaurant in Budapest,
who very clearly loved his food and his family. I was struck by the pride
of survival and of tradition—it’s a combination of newness and legacy that
I’d never experienced. When I think of the food, I think of lecsó, of soups
and stews, of pork and goose, of poppy seeds and pastry. I think of curious
and wonderful things like ginger in matzo balls, “Transylvania Ham” (made
from pork belly), and potato gnocchi for dessert caramelized with butter
and honey and garnished with apples, poppy seeds and walnuts. Oh, and the
endless array of pickles . . . love me those pickles.”
In fact, we all enjoyed our experience so much that we’re going back. Frank
and Amy are taking a group of Bakehouse managers over this spring to continue our learning. And we’ll all be returning this fall, this time focusing
our learning on Transylvania (now in Romania, formerly part of Hungary,
and boasting 3 million ethnic Hungarians). I think I might lug my copy of
George Lang’s book along. While I know only a bit about him, I’m pretty
confident that he’d very happy to see so many traditional Hungarian foods
being made, respectfully and traditionally, in the middle of North America.
When you taste some goose fat strudel, or appreciate a slice of Rigó Jancsi
or Dobos Torta, or roast some Hungarian bacon on a stick . . . maybe you’ll
do as I’ve started to and make a silent toast to Hungary, an amazing culture
and cuisine.
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