School Food: American Millenials React to Hungarian Cuisine
zita kisgergely
Hortobágyi crepes, photo via Wikipedia
Question: what would happen if you put a lot of traditional Hungarian dishes in front of a bunch of American college students? Below we have a video that attempts to answer that pressing question. While one might expect a good deal of resistance to foods such as rakott krumpli (layered potatoes, or potato casserole, depending on the translation) they were surprisingly open to the many Hungarian dishes placed before them. If you are new to Hungarian food, it can be typified by a few qualities, foremost the use of paprika (the cliché is true). But there is so much more to the cuisine, which has stayed surprisingly resilient to the influences of so many different ethnic foods that can now be found in Budapest. Heavy on braised meat stews, casseroles using seasonal vegetables, dry sausage and sour cream, and a lot of pork dishes (cattle are typically used for dairy, and whatever beef comes from them will be braised or put in soups). You will also see a few of oddball ingredients such as quark, poppy seed, and no shortage of liver. Dishes that may be considered exotic in the States can be commonly found in grocery stores here, like quail eggs, goose liver, and kefir. In the larger farmers’ market market halls, you can even find tastes leftover from food-scarce war-time Hungary, like horse sausage and offal, though these by no means define Hungarian food.
Well, the students were very sporting, perhaps because they got off easy (no horse sausage or pork lung). It makes for a nice meeting of cultures, and perhaps the legion of foreign Hungarian food fans (not to mention the Hungarians themselves), have gained some new recruits.
Flatpack Films is based in Budapest, Hungary. We are a film company that offers an inspiring and professional work atmosphere for our local and international clients. Since our inception, our focus has been providing the best of the best in terms of local production resources, locations, cast, and technical teams to ensure that whatever the production we facilitate, we do to highest standard possible.