Food and a Bit of Culture

I can't speak for everyone else on the trip, but when traveling far away, I tend to notice things I miss from home right away. I feel something of a void in myself, and the only good way to ease the culture shock and enjoy myself is to find something wonderful and uniquely local to fill that void. Fortunately, Budapest has enabled us to literally fill that void, by stuffing ourselves full of phenomenal food. Hungary is known for its generous portions, and rich, heavy, meaty cuisine. The Hungarian Forint is also among the weaker currencies in Europe, meaning prices are low. The upshot of all this is that, should we choose, we can eat like kings.

In fact, it was a rather meager breakfast the first morning in our hotel that snapped me out of any culture shock funk I might have been in. Though I had heard of them before, I could not possibly understand just how magical breakfast meats truly are. I'm not talking about bacon and sausage; no, we're talking a gorgeous spread of cold cuts, and even cheese. Why America lags so far behind "lowly" Central/Eastern Europe in its development of Breakfast Meat Technology, I can't say I understand. But I'm going to enjoy it while I'm here.

Moving beyond our hotel's offerings, our group has found our options to be quite wonderful––especially once we stopped rejecting relatively nice restaurants as "too pricy" for menu prices between 1300 and 2000 Forints (which, had we bothered to do our conversions correctly, we would have seen to be in the range of $7 to 10 US). Thus far, I've had some surprisingly good Italian food with the group, as well as a solid beef stew at a relatively nice bistro, and a wonderful evening tonight at a Scottish(!) pub with "the Edinburger." (And, yes, I am excited to be able to start stories with "I was at this Scottish pub in Budapest…") For the past two days (because once just wasn't enough) a few of us have stopped in for lunch at a small gyro shack run by a few gruff but friendly men of unknown Arabic, and probably Mediterranean, descent; with traditional rotisserie meat and a healthy serving of a fantastic paprika sauce. All this came in at under $3 US and, for an extra dollar or two, you can get a bottle of Fanta, which seems to be markedly more delicious here in Budapest. We also tried a quick Hungarian specialty for lunch at Budapest's famous Great Market Hall. "Lángos," sometimes known to English speakers under the far less appealing name "fried bread," is topped with sour cream, cheese, and a choice of any number of other ingredients ranging from cucumbers to salami to feta cheese. Though eating it probably took a few days off the end of my life, my only regret is that I got so many toppings that I couldn't really enjoy the underlying bread base––which also was phenomenal.

Besides the matter of cuisine, we've noticed a few other interesting aspects of Hungarian culture and society. For example, their interplay with American culture especially is intriguing. Wandering about Budapest, one can easily come across a number of people wearing Yankees hats and other apparel for US sports teams, as well as stores selling US sports team clothing- all despite that baseball and American football aren't particularly popular in Hungary. On top of that, one can come across a fair number of restaurants and cafés drawing upon US states for their themes- often making associations we normally wouldn't (California and Coffee, for example). So far, it would seem that the Hungarian perception of America roughly takes the US to be composed entirely of California, Texas (or cowboys in general), and New York. Popping in to any of these shops and restaurants to see the Hungarian vision of the United States tends to be good fun, especially when their vision of the States ends up being just a little off.

-Thomas and Tommy