Hungarian cuisine
Hungary is an exotic, mysterious and plenty stories country that attracts tourists from all around the world, but it also has a strong gastronomy with plenty of flavors and aromas that little has changed over time. For these reasons we’ll tell you the history of its gastronomy, which dishes are the most desirable, how to prepare and how to eat them.
The Hungarian cuisine goes hand in hand with its history, it has a tradition of almost 1000 years and some Eastern influences, both in the seasoning and in several flavors. One of those characteristics is that all the soups and stews are thickened with lard and wheat toast flour, which gives them a texture and taste of its own. The main spices are paprika, which can be spicy or not, but it is essential to any further development of Hungary. Another inevitable flavor is tomato and onion Hungary.
One of the internationally known dishes is goulash, this soup with the consistency of stew is made with cubed beef, potatoes, lard, green bell peppers, onions, fresh tomatoes, ground paprika, cumin, garlic and csipetke pasta. This dish has become the most traditional of the Hungarian cuisine and almost every restaurant in Budapest has it in its menu.
The csipetke paste (meaning pinch) is made only with flour and eggs, it has no water, and when the dough is ready, you take little bits with your fingers and put them into the preparations in the moments that is boiling. It is also used in special preparations for those who do not like meat.
For many products used in Hungarian cuisine, a tour to the central market in Budapest is very didactic, and is one of the most beautiful Art Deco buildings in Europe. The products can distinguish the famous multicolored Hungarian sausages, such as the delicious variety of salamis that are in high demand worldwide. The particularity of these salamis, is that the meat is not grinded, it is chopped into small pieces that are smoked with beech wood. There is also the unique hanging of paprika and garlic.
Do not forget is the barak pálinka, the traditional liquor made of peach. This drink, according to Hungarian culture, enhances mood and body strength.
In general, the Hungarian food does not have raw vegetables, and its dishes are served very hot. Keep this in mind this when you are offered traditional Hungarian food.
Hungarian desserts are fresh fruit tarts and crêpes, which are filled with nuts, fresh fruit, cream, cinnamon and some booze. The crêpes are not flamed; a finishing sauce to give flavor is added.
Nancy Guzman
With these recipes, the only thing you should do now is to rent apartments in Budapest and spend the best days of the year in this charming city, where the Danube has inspired artists, writers and poets.
Translated by: Hans
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Sándor Hollán in Budapest
Until February 5, Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in presents an interesting exposition “The Way of the Tree” by the Hungarian painter Sándor Hollán, The exhibition is a tribute to the work of the artist who uses nature to express the existential complexities through painting and graphic design.
Along with about 100 works by artists, including those of great masters , the museum takes a journey into the work of Sándor Hollán to show the influences and changes that the artist has had in the course of his work. It is a quest to discover his history through this exhibition that shows an interesting approach to Hungarian art.
Sándor Hollán was born in Budapest in 1933. He began to paint self-taught as a teenager. In 1955 he obtained his master degree in painting in a Hungary that began to be shaken in search of changes after Stalin’s death and the weakening of the pro-Soviet regime. In 1956 there is a large student demonstration that ends in repression and tighter restrictions on freedom, a motive that puts his family in the list of unreliable citizens to the authorities. In this situation, about 200 thousand people go into exile, Hollán moved to Paris to study painting at the Paris Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and then he studied graphic arts at l’École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.
Hollán, like great painters and artists, has used nature to accommodate the complex existential senses, just as Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and others did and through it bared their inner world. It is nature that gives strength to his work. You can see the changes it is experiencing, in a game where color and shading are going deep into the passages of his emotional world.
His interesting exploration of artists from different times forges his own way, turns him into a studious character and a perfectionist who is always in search of an aesthetic expression, which leads to achieving the ideal of perfect work, as nature is , where the colors, textures and shapes achieve a unique harmony.
The ongoing quest for new experiences and stimuli that came from a different perspective of art led him to buy a small publishing company in 1984 in southern France, where he spent his summers. This publishing company has been transformed into the space where illustrations can be created from words, challenging them from abstraction, such as those made for books by the poet and philosopher Yves Bonnefoy.
No doubt that the work of Hollán is a delight to the senses and an encounter with an aesthetic challenge that grabs the viewer.
For more information: http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/web/guest/articleview?mi_layout_id=29.30&mi_article_id=993
Nancy Guzman
To know more about this interesting artist one only has to rent apartments in Budapest after attending the exhibition go out to enjoy thousands of stimuli that this city has to offer you.
Translated by: Marc
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Budapest International Circus Festival
If you love to laugh; you enjoy watching acrobats perform heart-stopping stunts; you like hearing parrots sing songs; and you’d love to see elephants cycling to their heart’s content; then the Budapest International Circus Festival is sure to excite you. This event is being arranged and hosted by the Capital Circus Group from Hungary for the 9th successive year. They present the audience with the best forms of spectacular aerobics and stunt shows from Hungary. The event was last held in 2010, and is hosted every two years in search of new talent. From different corners of Hungary and Europe, budding professionals participate in this show to make a name for themselves and to begin an illustrious career.
When and Where is the Budapest International Circus Festival?
The Budapest International Circus Festival will be held at the Hungarian capital of Budapest from the 2nd to the 6th of February, 2012. This event is a launching platform for many with the involvement of the prominent people in the industry. The jury this year will comprise of people from Canada, Italy, Germany, England and France. The event will also offer Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for a podium finish.
Let the Performers Astonish You!
The Budapest International Circus Festival is a competition presented in the form of a mega event. This year’s event will feature more acts than the last year. There will be thirty-four different breath-taking events and stunts performed by well-picked artists from all over the world. These performers are divided into two different groups, A and B. Group A will perform acts like juggling, Hula-hoop shows, comedy shows, musical clowns, orchestra performances, violin and silk players, high wire performances and a performance of tigers and panthers from Russia. Group B will feature performances like aerial hammocks, golf juggling, dog acts and comedy acts as well.
Like previous years, this year will also witness shows in the format of shows A-B-B-A. These groups will be judged by individuals in the jury. Depending on this judgment the winning group will get an opportunity to perform in the Gala event on the final day. The performers from this winning group A or B will be judged individually for various awards like best Foreign Act, the best Hungarian Act, and the best Pierrot awards. Tickets are available online for international visitors in three categories.
D. Laney
apartments in Budapest will never be the same after this year’s Budapest International Circus Festival. Take the time to enjoy this event – you won’t regret it!
International Circus Festival in Budapest
Among the memories and images of sad things, the remains of abandoned travelling circuses shine with their own dimmed light in cities. On these ephemeral ruins made of materials that are rarely used, you can perceive a pure idea of death in perpetual tension with the kingdom of possibilities, dreams and magic. There’s something pure in them that goes further than all measures and purity itself, something similar perhaps to the essential strain that’s produced by everything traditional in music and art, a strange feeling of presence outside time itself, revealed through that infinite space of what’s absent, oppressed and forgotten.
In some way, the circus rhymes secretly and intimately with the winter heart, in the same way that Central Europe does, the heart thrown to the fire of the ruins of the old and evocative Danubian civilization. According to a certain zen Buddhist aspect of sensitive gnostic echoes, in winter’s nature there’s an invitation to take the walk of life to something deep, mysterious and dark that can become terrifying but whose galleries are paradoxically lit, creating new senses like only an oxymoron can, with vibrant and flashing sparks that produce a feeling of delight, enjoyment and pleasure which largely result as unkown, despite having them inside us all the time and in which the intrinsic nature of the true awakening of real life resides in.
A similar feeling might have accompanied the incessant circular movement of the circus for thousands of years all over different continents, although the answer to which side of the eye of its evocative and symbolic tents we can find that other brilliant and terrifying life to which we seem to have access during the show, has never been revealed.
Under the direction of the acclaimed Istvan Kristof, the city of Budapest – a fascinating place of cross culture, people and time that seems to be permanently suspended in time, like the circus itself, in a unique high-risk funambulist act of great beauty among different somnambulist realities- celebrates its 9th International Circus Festival from the 2nd to the 6th of February of 2012 (http://www.fnc.hu/festival/en/).
During four days, the attendants will have the chance to see a selection of the best circus acts of today, together with a large number of emerging talents who come from over twenty countries, from Hungary to Canada, from Sweden to Cuba, from Italy to Armenia, from Russia to Colombia, from France to Ukraine.
Its international character, together with its nomadism, is probably one of the most distinctive features of the circus, an artistic entertainment show in more than one way, connected with performance, whose historical background can be traced both in the Far East as in the first near-Oriental societies.
Paul Oilzum
If you rent apartments in Budapest around those dates and you’re interested in the world of the circus, don’t miss this extraordinary festival that only takes place every two years and has usually become a way of discovering and launching sparkling and dark winter stars.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Marcell Nemes in Budapest
Until the 19th of February of 2012, the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts holds the exhibition ‘El Greco to Rippl-Rónai’, which gathers the collection of Marcell Jánoshalmi Nemes. With this exhibition they attempt to pay a tribute to the patronage of the Hungarian art collector who became a legend in the world of art in the beginning of the 20th century.
The exhibition was titled ‘El Greco to Rippl-Rónai’ because it shows the broadness of the contained works in this important collection. For that they’ve selected 120 objects, among which we can find works by great Italian and Dutch masters, works of Hungarian artists, china, medieval sculptures and other objects of decorative art from different times, catalogues and documents belonging to Nemes.
Marcell Jánoshalmi Nemes was born in Jánoshalma, Hungary, in 1866. His becoming of one of the most important patrons and collectors in Hungary and Europe was full of speculations. This meant that his figure become one of the most controversial ones of his time, which made him into a legend, because he opted to finance young Hungarian artists and artists from other nationalities, buying their works so they could carry on their perfectionist studies.
During his life he donated various works of his collection, such as the valuable work by El Greco ‘Mary Magdalene in penitence’ and another by Ádám Mányoki, ‘Ferenc Rákózi’, which is considered a work of heritage in Hungary of huge value, a gem of Hungarian arts, to the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts.
His generosity wasn’t limited to his country. Numerous institutions such as the Munich Museum, the Berlin Museum, the Louvre Museum and the Prado Museum also received donations. Also, various Hungarian institutions, such as the Applied Arts Museum, received donations, and he contributed in a generous way to the foundation of the Kecskemét Photography Gallery, to whom he gave 80 works of his private collection on Hungarian painting in 1911.
Based on this singularity of Nemes, the exhibition is made up by works of his collection belonging to various national and international museums, as well as parts of his collection that are found today in the hands of private collectors. With this, they try to enhance the wealth of the collection and remember his visionary view on art and its preservation for future generations.
In the exhibition we can find works by important 19th and 20th century Hungarian artists, among them works by József Rippl-Rónai, Mihály Munkácsy, Pál Szinyei Merse, Károly Ferenczy, János Vaszary, Béla Ultz and Károly Kernstok among others.
József Rippl-Rónai was born in Kaposvár, Hungary, in 1861. Despite his pharmacy studies, he moved to the Art Academy in Munich to study painting and then moved to Paris to study the same subject with Munkácsy. Among his greatest painting there’s ‘My Grandmother’ and the portrait of the great Hungarian pianist Zdenka Ticharich.
For more information: http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/web/guest/articleview?mi_layout_id=29.30&mi_article_id=964
Nancy Guzman
It’s always pleasant to spend a few deserved relaxing days in Budapest, a city full of romance, art, history and a culinary offer of the highest quality. For these and thousands more reasons, rent apartments in Budapest now and enjoy the beginning of 2012 so you can start the year with positive energy.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Gypsy Love in Budapest Opera House
If you are close to Budapest on the 17th of January 2012, you will have the opportunity to attend the first presentation of 2012 of the fantastic operetta Gypsy Love. The emblematic Budapest Operetta and Musical Theatre hosts 8 performances until the 23rd of February of one of the most exotic and fun shows of the moment, which has already coquetted the hearts of locals and tourists visiting the Hungarian capital.
Budapest is undoubtedly one of the most charming European capitals; its architecture, customs and food, are an extra incentive to visit the largest city in Hungary. Gipsy Love is a great plan, not only for opera lovers, but also for those who enjoy music entertaining, dances and songs among many other emotions.
The Budapest Operetta hosts such native operettas based on Hungarian history and contemporary works, always trying to entertain as much as possible and investing in young talent.
The clash of cultures in the style of Love Story is the main theme of this operetta. Set in a distant land in rural Transylvania, where Romanians, Hungarians and Gypsies live together. The beautiful Zorika is the protagonist of this story. Daughter of Peter Dragoje, a rich feudal lord, Zorika must follow the plans of her father who is dedicated to making preparations to marry her to the son of a wealthy farmer neighbor of the family, Gabor. A very suitable marriage, taking into accounts the social class Zorika and Gabor belong to.
But as expected the thing is not so simple. Józsi, Zorika’s gypsy love from childhood, returns to the city to disrupt the agreed ceremony. This violinist gets achieved his goal and Zorika escaped with him with the nomadic Gypsies. The problem does not end there. Llona completes the loving quartet, whose discord and misunderstandings make us vibrate.
The musical’s lesson is clear, above all hatred that can arise between different cultures, it is the love what manages to create peace and understanding.
We’ll have to wait until the last minutes of the show to get to know its outcome, but until then we will enjoy of dances, heels, beautiful songs and all the color of the fantastic dresses and costumes of the actors and actresses.
The performance lasts three hours with an intermission, but in reality, you won’t want it to end. What is certain is that you’ll want to stay stuck or glued to your seat, you’ll feel like leaving the theater. You can buy your tickets for this great show on the Internet. The official website of Operetta and Musical Theatre has very cheap prices, you can book the best seats for less than 30 €.
Fernando Paterna
Get apartments in Budapest and attend the Gipsy Love show. Holiday apartments are a very comfortable and much cheaper alternative to hotels, so Budapest Gipsy Love will be at our fingertips if you decide to rent one.
Translated by: Hans
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Concert at the Matthias Church in Budapest
There’s nothing better than starting the new year with a different plan. Visiting a special place and being with the family and friends is what we all like to do, but if we also organize an event to enjoy as a group, we’ll have a special evening which we’ll never forget.
That’s why on the 2nd of January of 2012 everyone should attend the concert which will take place at the Matthias Church. This mystical church in the city of Budapest was built in the 11th century in a Roman style, although it went through various remodelling which turned it into Gothic style. This temple was the second biggest in the medieval Hungarian kingdom, which meant it constitutes an emblem for all Hungarians.
The concert which will take place in the church, at the beginning of January, will begin at 8pm and the programme is wide and varied, which means the event will last approximately two hours. Some of the pieces which will be played are ‘Air’ by Johann Sebastian Bach and Sonata di Chiesa by Giovanni Albinoni among others.
The church is located in the old town of the city of Budapest. All tourists should visit it due to its historical and cultural importance. Also, it’s located in the city centre, where all visitors to the city gather.
The price per ticket for this concert is of 50 euros, that are worth paying to enjoy a night of good music. Also, the tickets can be booked in advance on the internet.
For more information on the event and the construction and history of this temple, you can visit the official webpage of the church: http://www.matyas-templom.hu/eng/index1.html
d.b
If you don’t want to miss this concert at the Matthias Church, you can rent apartments in Budapest and you’ll be close to all the tourist attraction points in the city, such as monuments, museums and even the best restaurants.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The Golden Age of American Rock Posters in Budapest
Until the 31st of December, the Kogart Gallery in Budapest exhibits ‘From San Francisco to Woodstock – the Golden Age of American Posters 1965-1971′. The Kogart Gallery remembers the music festival which marked an era and a way of resistance towards the society of consumption in the 20th century, through posters which shaped the psychedelic art trend, concentrating in the products of the area of the San Francisco Bay.
The posters mark, in a majestic way, a time of great social transformations which shaped art, music and politics, and generated a unique aesthetic in all the social fields. In those years, San Francisco, California, was an effervescent place full of activities which changed the everyday life of the city and its surroundings with the Beatnik and Hippy culture, as well as with more radical movements such as the Black Panthers who fought for civil rights and social change.
The graphic work which these exhibited posters show not only have the historical interest of remembering a time and the Woodstock Festival, but in them they have the signs of a new visual art current, which are linked to Central European traditions. The exhibition also contains other items of that time, such as original documents of the manuscripts which were made for these projects, sketches and the tools used for their making.
The Woodstock Festival, whose complete name was ‘Woodstock. 3 days of Peace & Music’, was the music and art rock festival which shined the light the most on the hippy movement and their ideals of pacific co-existence and rejecting the Vietnam War, where thousands of people died every day. This took place on a farm in Bethel, in Sullivan County, close to New York, on the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of August 1969. The initial project was to carry it out in the town of Woodstock, Ulster County, New York, but the local conservative population opposed the idea of the festival taking place where men and women of ‘dubious reputation’ would attend, who would sleep together and as a group. From there it got its initial name but, in the end, Sam Yasgur convinced his father Max Yagsur to facilitate the lands of his property.
The festival, full of passivity, only had three deaths, but none of them product of violence, and it gave birth to two children full of the spirit of love and peace.
On its great stage, they sung against the war and in favour of the revolution, they paid tribute to Latin America, the burned American flags in disgust due to their imperialist politics, and the most important rock icons of all time shone, such as Joe Cocker with his t-shirt which shaped fashion, Jimi Hendrix, who made the most impressive guitar solo ever playing the American anthem and imitating war sounds with his strumming, and Joan Baez with her songs of social protest, amongst over a hundred artists.
The documentary on ‘Woodstock. 3 Days of Peace & Music’, directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited and produced among others by Martin Scorsese, reached the cinema screens around the world in 1970, causing a real furore among the young population. For this documentary, the director obtained the Oscar for ‘Best Documentary’.
For more information: http://kogart.hu/kogart/en/index.jsp
Nancy Guzman
This exhibition is a great way to remember the golden age of the 60s, so rent apartments in Budapest and relive those times where the dream for world peace seemed to be within reach.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Christmas Market in Budapest
Christmas is a time that whether we like it or not, whether we’re Christians, Muslims, Jews or atheists, it always connects us with our childhood and that unstoppable pleasure of giving others a small gift or something which brings them happiness, even if it’s a short one, but that feels affection further than itself. Maybe from there there’s emerges the tradition of Christmas markets, and Budapest has the most beautiful and entertaining one in the whole of Eastern Europe.
Known as the Christmas market of Vörösmarty Square, it begins every year close to the 20th of November, for those who go shopping early and don’t leave everything until the last minute. The closing date is the 29th of December, because there’s always someone who left buying presents until late and waits until the new year to give them. Its opening hours are from 10am until 8pm except on the 24th, because that day, for those who have forgotten it’s Christmas Eve, all 100 stands in the market are open until 2am in case anyone had forgotten to buy gifts.
In any case, it’s always beautiful, whether you go to buy gifts or not, to walk around this market which offers never ending objects for the delight of the ones with weak will to buy. Such is its fame that ‘s become a classic spot for tourists, especially because of the singular aesthetics of this place, which is amplified with the pretty wooden stands styled like small chalets. Here they exhibit the most typical Hungarian crafts, curiosities, some interesting antiques, local artist’s works and all sorts of objects, which I assure you you won’t find anywhere else.
However, not everything that you find here are objects, there are also the food stalls of typical food at unique prices, with dishes that would delight gourmets. If you still haven’t tried ‘Lángos’, bread cooked with a potato dough, I recommend it, because here you’ll find the most delicious and traditional ones in Budapest. There are also the wonderful apple strudel made in traditional Hungarian ovens. And to beat the cold, nothing better than a ‘forrait’, a warm punch made with wine, cinnamon and herbs which is served in a cup which you can take with you a souvenir of Budapest and its Christmas Market.
Also, there are musicians and cultural activities every day with different presentations. So don’t think that if you went one day you saw it all, the opposite, there will always be new surprises to enjoy, so you can walk, see, eat and, of course, shop. Everywhere you can find stimulants that will make this visit a very special one.
For those who travel with their family, this is the ideal place to visit as a group, because apart from everything that we’ve explained for the adults, there are special entertainment programmes for the children, so nobody will get bored in this market.
Nancy Guzman
In order not to miss this wonderful panorama, rent apartments in Budapest and have fun walking and buying at the Christmas Market at Vörösmarty Square . After, with your shopping finished, you can go to the thermal baths to relax and carry on enjoying this charming and enigmatic city.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Rihanna in Budapest
Maybe it’s because in terms of sparkling and outright stardom only one or two names can come close to Rihanna – who will be performing at the Sports Arena in Budapest on the upcoming 8th of December (http://en.budapestarena.hu/html/) – her concerts are always an event which are able to raise interest, attention, passion and even obsession with a capital O in an extraordinarily diverse crowd, which can be illustrated by the fact that even CocoRosie, someone who would position themselves as the polar opposite to Rihanna in terms of music, have declared being a big fans of her.
According to the musical producer Evan Rogers, during a visit to Barbados in 2003 when he agreed to carry out an audition to the Caribbean singer, who was not yet 18 years old, he had the feeling that the rest of the girls at the audition disappeared completely, as if the presence of Rihanna when entering the hotel where the audition was taking place had the power to make it impossible to see anyone else. Anyone who has seen Rihanna won’t find it hard to believe.
Together with her fascinating capacity to change her appearance continuously without giving up taking risks (however she says herself that Madonna is her biggest influence and has declared her aim to become the ‘black Madonna’), it’s probably the aforementioned and unforgettable energy charge in her presence, which combines sexuality close to the surface of an unsettling and even terrible exhuberance (all the numinous power of a goddess of sex) with features of delicate and unquestionable beauty where you can see triumph, exposing for the umpteenth time the ethic purisms, the truth of goodness and aesthetic privileges of the mixes (her mother is Afro-Guyanese and her father Barbadian from Irish descent), on top of her, on the other hand, undisputed gifts as a singer, managing to seductively mix contemporary R&B, dance-hall, hip-hop, reggae and Caribbean music, which is the true key to her success.
Such an overwhelming success has taken her, in barely six years, among other things, to reach the sixth position in the Google list of most searched people, having her own wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s, managing worldwide sales of over 30 million albums and over 100 million singles, as well as being the first woman who has managed five number 1s in five consecutive years in the UK charts, where, partly due to the controversy raised by her vibrant song ‘S&M’, along with its even more controverted and powerful video, it smashed all the sales records (more than ten million sales) with her album ‘Loud’ (2010).
Paul Oilzum
Perhaps for this reason, under the numinous power of her unique presence, her concerts are, at least until now, more of a frantic succession of spectacular scenes that someone has compared with the action of randomly zapping through different pop video channels, than some kind of concept idea, which is something to be grateful for in present times. If you rent apartments in Budapest you shouldn’t miss it.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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