HUNGARIAN COOKING : POGÁCSA (WHO WILL GET THE BISCUIT WITH A COIN IN IT?)

FOOD PERESTROIKA : HUNGARIAN BISCUITS  Love this website.  Well written by site owner Florian, interesting, and good recipes.... you'll get hungry just reading this.

Excerpt: In many Hungarian folk tales, the hero takes with him a pogasca baked in embers before setting off on a long journey. On St. Luca's name day (December 13th), a coin is hidden in a batch of pogis, and the person who finds it is said to win good luck for the following year.

Excerpt: One of the first written mentions of the famous pagasca can be found in The Science of Cooking, written by the court of the Prince of Transylvania around 1580 and available in English (link here.)  Not surprisingly for medieval cuisine, many of these pagacsa recipes include rose water, almond, wine, jam, or honey. Several of these use grated honey kalach mixed with soaked pieces of bread roll instead of making dough from scratch with flour....

HUNGARIAN WOMEN on GENEALOGY RECORDS : GENEALOGY TIPS

In September of 2014 I posted a series of Genealogy Tips focused on the special considerations researching Hungarian women of our heritage. In an effort to make all the genealogy tip series I've written for this blog, I've given each a unique label as well as icon.

The label, which you can click to bring up the series, is GenTips - Hungary Women

The series also uses the icon to the left which comes from Wikimedia . The image was scanned by Szilas from the book Erdely Tortenet (History of Transylvania) which was held in the National Szehenyi Library and is identified as being an Hungarian noble of Transylvania.

(Costume Bilder aus Siebenbürgen)

You must go to the original image to determine if you can use it for your purposes, as it may depend on what country you're using it in. 

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THE HISTORIAN by ELIZABETH KOSTOVA : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

I read this book while dog-sitting in a room shaded from the sunny afternoons near the Pacific. 

Ah well, surrounded by dogs in bed with me, including my own beloved pooch, who did not hide her jealousy well, I was frequently disrupted from my concentration. I stuck with it, thinking that so many people I've met hear "Hungarian" and immediately think of vampires, of Transylvania, and well, there are actually descendants of Vlad Tepes - Drakyula - Dracula - Vlad the Impaler - who is honored for keeping the Turks out of his Principality - and whose tactics have actually been used in modern times by other bizarre, evil, mentally ill, personalities - alive today.  Prince Charles, who is not evil or mentally ill, is one of them and so might you be. 

I also thought that some of you might want to do some reading that gives you the creeps and though my copy was rife with high recommendations and this book came out over a decade ago, I decided to persist in reading it so I could yea or ney the critics.

"The Historian" is a very researched, very detailed, very intellectual, very long, book. Throughout the writing creates a tension in the reader that persists as the author, Elizabeth Kostova, drops subtle hints along the way. Some you'll figure out right away, others not. The dramatic parts sneak up on you, kind of like a vampire.

If you like diplomats, grad students, academic travel, university conferences, European travel, libraries, librarians, archives, and books, especially ancient books that mysteriously appear in study alcoves and on office desks bearing a dragon motif that makes one addicted to the pursuit of Vlad...  If you find tiny tattoos of the same dragon motif on the shoulders of maidens curious... If you like monasteries and monks, churches and priests, village women who sing folk songs and walk on burning coals without injury, graves under floors, graves guarded by monks,  dark stone cellars were the undead persist, cloves of garlic stuffed in pockets, silver bullets and silver daggers, as well as the love stories of innocents, this tome might be one for you.

Something about it, the language, the pacing, the mentalities, feels to be from past centuries. Despite the fact that some of it is played out in the 1950's during the Communist occupation of Hungary and the Balkans, as well as the 1970's, it just doesn't feel like it.  

Not once did the sun come out.

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All Rights reserved including International and Internet Rights.

LAKATOS ROBERT ES a REV ZENEKAR - ERDELYES - TRANSYLVANIA

HUNGARIAN MUSIC FROM TRANSYLVANIA

I MEET A ROMANIAN- SERBIAN AMERICAN JUST HOME FROM WEEKS IN SIBIU AND MAGYAR TERRITORY

This morning I had a half dozen errands to complete before my day really started.  I decided to take a bus to the center of the next city which allowed me to grocery shop at my favorite Trader Joes, return a pair of shoes I changed my mind about, make a bank deposit, pick up a reserved book at the library, and get some movies for later before 10 am. On the bus I sat near an older gentleman who proceeded to tell me he was from Transylvania.

"Ah!  I have an ancestor who left Sebes (Sibiu) in the 19th century.  I think he was a German Hungarian."

"A Magyar!"

"Yes, I'm Magyar!"

"I just got back from there.  I don't speak English too good.  I thought I would speak Romanian but everyone said to me "Speak English!"

We laughed.

"I understand the Romanians want the Germans and the Hungarians out!  But they've been there for hundreds of years!"

He nodded.

"I have been in America for 45 years," he said.

VIDEO DOWN

STRANDS OF THE UNIVERSE? THE MILKY WAY : THE LEGEND OF SCABA BY FRED HAMORI

So much very exciting news from space exploration!  Recently say an article out of Australia that said that scientists had seen the web of the universe for the first time. (Of course when I read the explanation of how this could be so, I realized they didn't even mean seeing with a telescope, and it was theory.)

Then I found this story called THE WAY OF THE HOSTS -  THE MILKY WAY - LEGEND OF CSABA!

CWNET - CHABA LEGEND BY FRED HAMORI  (settle in to read)

It begins, "In Hungarian mythology the youngest son of Attila (Etele) was called Csaba, which in Turkic and old Hungarian also meant shepherd, the "shepherd of the people". 

This legend is about the mythical guardianship he symbolizes for the people of
Transylvanian Hungarians who treat him as their ancestor and guardian "angel" in
a loosely translated sense. The Transylvanian-Hungarian anthem even calls to him
for his protection..."

HUNGARIAN MUSIC FROM TRANSYLVANIA : ARANY ZOLTAN

MEN ON THE MOUNTAIN : 1942 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL BIENNALE AWARD : BASED ON THE STORIES BY JOZSEF NYIRO VINTAGE HUNGARIAN CHRISTMAS MOVIE

MEN ON THE MOUNTAIN is the story of a poor lumberjack and his wife and their Transylvanian mountain neighbors, who eek out a poor living off the land. When a big timber company buys that land and offers them work rather than eviction, they take the company up on their offer.

The drama focuses on a man whose wife is raped by the supervisor, and who then becomes ill with, perhaps depression, perhaps typhus. He takes her into the church for a pilgrimage to Blessed Mother Mary, then to doctors, but she dies, and he must take her dead body home on the train.

Though this film is in black and white (circa 1942 - when it was the winner of the Venice film festival Biennale Award) and very dark in color, none of the actors was overacting, and so I felt as though these were real people and overall it was very effecting, bringing tears to my eyes. The values and loyalty of the people on the mountain reminds me of how exceptional such loyalty is today.

I watched in on a DVD (with English subtitles) put out by Bunyik. It was written by Jozsef Nyiro and Istvan Szots and stars Alice Szellat and Janor Gorbe.

C 2011 Magyar American Blogspot

The official BELA LUGOSI web site!

BELA LUGOSI is probably the best known male Hungarian actor who made it to Hollywood. He starred as Dracula.... Count Dracula of legend...  who actually may have been based on a real person VLAD THE IMPALER.


Free Screen Saver at this site.... hmmm... would you like it to be Halloween all year long?