speaker’s corner
‘DE GONDOLJUNK itt Rakoczi katonaira Vak Bottyan!” I shouted ecstatically as I pored over the map tracing the cycle track along the Danube through unpronounceable towns.
“What?” she said from the kitchen. (It’s never “Pardon?” or “I beg yours?”)
“I’ll soon be meeting my Hungarian friends again.”
“What friends? You were there only once in your life, for three days.”
But I was lost in reverie. I saw, once more, that gorgeous gypsy dancer, Kirandulast es Uzleti, pirouetting to wild gypsy music, a bottle of Szent Istvan chardonnay balanced on her head, her dress flared out to waist height as the goulash cascaded down my shirt front.
I was planning to cycle down the Danube with five friends starting at Passau in Germany, stopping off at Vienna and then going on to Budapest. Our average age was then 67 and only one of us had seriously cycled since childhood. But with padded pants and gel saddles we hoped to survive the 800km, 17-day ride.
My reverie took me back to Elizabeth Island in the middle of the Danube, to the Grand Ramada’s Baroque-style dining room, the strains of Strauss’s An der schoneen, blauen Donau playing softly as I burrowed into the Borjuy’ara Budapest medra.
Kisbusszal! I sighed. (Dear reader, don’t you love these italics? So cultured! So szemleygepkocsiral.) I don’t suppose we’ll be able to afford to eat at the Ramada (a hotel at which I was once hosted by the Hungarian tourist department) but it was there that I discovered a great starter for a dinner party, one that I have actually made much to the astonishment of my friends.
It is fustolt lazac. The Ramada’s chef, Krisztina Korut, told me how to make it.
You take a soft slice of evenly done golden toast (let it cool); place directly upon it a thin circular slice of orange (with rind); place upon that a couple of slices of smoked salmon and put a blob of horseradish sauce on top. That’s it. Deak ter! Oila! Jislaaik!
My reverie took me along the Buda side of the Danube, back up Castle Hill at night; the narrow cobbled streets, the polite crowds oozing culture from every pore; the ancient, elegant Fortuna Restaurant.
In a centuries-old cellar beneath the restaurant they still bottle their own champagne the 19th century way.
They allow guests to try their hand at corking and labelling their own to take home. I corked a bottle myself and the vintner, smiling at the froth-covered diners who had been silly enough to stay in line of fire, declared I must have been born to it.
We were invited to name our bubbly so I named it for my first (newly born) grandchild, “Timothy Nourse” intending to open it at his 21st birthday party.
But, like good Scotch or Cognac, champagne in my house doesn’t keep. It kept almost a year before I opened it to celeberate Tim’s first birthday. It was brilliant.
(Look, I have no idea what most of these words mean. It’s just that when I think about Hungary and its perpetual cultural feast I... how can I put this?... I think in italics. Repuloteri!
Hungarian is a very difficult language as are all languages to the English-speaking person with a secondary school education like me. For instance, study the following sentence: Ha kihult, hozzaadjuk a karikara vagott kolbaszt, a zoldborsot es az aprora vagott fott tojassal, I db nyers tojassal, sozzuk borozzuk, es az egeset jol osszekeverjuk.
If I were to tell you those were the words that stirred the Magyars into rising up against Ottoman rule in 1681 would you believe me? Or was this a newspaper report about a man who snatched ladies’ knickers off clothes lines? Neither. These words are from a cookbook on how to make a stuffed beef roll.