The food

I started this post while I was in Hodmezovasarhely, and thought I would go ahead a finish it and post it as I know many of you are interested in the food.

The breakfasts are much like I have experienced elsewhere in Europe: buffet style with breads and rolls, cheeses and meats, fruit, yogurt, muesli and sometimes hard or soft boiled eggs. Coffee is thick - almost muddy like!

The last few days we've made sandwiches to take to school along with fruit and water. Pretty basic and we really don't have much time to eat at school, unless we have a free period. Each day's schedule is different. There are 45 minute classes with 15 minute breaks in between. Sometimes the teachers have yard duty and other times they take time to meet one-on-one with a student or prepare for the next class. At any rate, the teachers grab a bite here and there during the day, and we were doing the same thing. After the students leave at 2:00pm, the teachers can have lunch in the cantina. We were never invited there, so don't really know what all was served.

As I was told before coming here, the serving sizes are huge. One night for dinner we each had four - yes, four! - chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and ham, breaded and then deep-fried, served with rice and potatoes! This is the regular size portions! Since our food was pre-ordered for us when we went together to dinner, we were not given choices. But, usually, only half servings were ordered and then we would get two pieces of meat instead of four.

Not only are the servings huge, the meat has almost always been breaded and fried. At the end of the second week in Hod, I was desperate to find things to eat that were not fried. I ate goulash in the late afternoon during my free time, so I could skip most of the dinner being served! At the Fisherman's Restaurant in Hod, they had a full page of turkey dishes, and no chicken dishes. Most restaurants I am seeing both being served, but turkey breasts are quite popular. Of course, they are not the huge ones we carve on Thanksgiving!

I love the goulash. Apparently there are two types. We have had only the goulash soup. This soup has a reddish broth - most of us would think this was from tomato sauce, however there is no tomato in the goulash! It is from the paprika that is added to the broth. The goulash is made in a big pot over a "campfire" outside and is often served in a kettle which you can see in a number of my pictures. The soup consists of beef, potatoes and sometimes carrots. Then little pinched dumplings are added -- they are about the size of my thumbnail.

The fish soups in Hodmezovasarhely and Szeged are very good and are made slightly differently and they vie for the best fish soup. I had it in both places and really preferred the one in Szeged, but didn't dare tell my hosts in Hod!

On our day trip to Szeged we ate at a very nice restaurant (see pictures of the food!) and enjoyed the fish soup and then a pasta dish. The pasta was flat noodles mixed with cottage cheese with sour cream and crunchy bacon on top. It was VERY good!

Bread is always served with the soup course, but there is never butter served with it. The only vegetables served with a meal seem to be the ones used for garnish: a tomato and/or cucumber. One of our team members complained about not having any vegetables, which resulted in our not getting any more potatoes/rice with our meals, but a plate full of veg-all instead! Yuk! At the Pushta, we were served a vegetable dish, however at the table where our guide and her family were sitting, she took the bowl and placed it at the end of the table out of reach with disgust as these were not "traditional" foods!

The specialty dessert seems to be based on hazelnuts with a pudding and whipped cream. The hazelnuts are ground and then sprinkled on a pudding and served with the whipped cream. I didn't really care for this. We've also had sponge cake soaked in brandy, covered in chocolate sauce with huge dollops of whipped cream on top ( like this one a lot more!). Other desserts have included crepes with hazelnut or chocolate filling, fried bananas in a sauce and a custard (served at the Pushta).

While traveling on my own with Annie, the hotel included breakfast in the price. This breakfast was scrambled eggs with rolls and coffee. We put together our own lunches with snacks or bread, crackers, cheeses, yogurts, apples and bananas.

The prices for meals out are very reasonable. And, unlike in Juneau, when you have wine with your meal, the price of the meal doesn't skyrocket! Yesterday, I had grilled fish with potatoes - two fillets - and the price was 1200 forints. That is around $7.50. I bought bean soup to take with me for when I got back to Budapest and it was 940 forints - which was high for soup. (They put the soup in an old glass applesauce jar, wrapped it in foil and placed it in a plastic bag - they aren't used to take out!) The goulash soup that I had a number of times in Hod was 650 forints - or around $4. for a HUGE bowl with bread. In Budapest, the same size bowl goes for anywhere from 950 to 1200 forints, depending on how touristy the restaurant is.

Oh, the one thing I forgot to mention is how salty the food is. They use a lot of sausage and other processed meat, so that in itself is salty. But even the fried food and the soups are loaded in salt! I really have to watch it to make sure I am not getting too much.