"Budapest eat finger's!!!"

We said our byes to Patrick and his family, then hopped on a bus, then a train then another train into Hungry.

Our destination was Budapest, to see Jess. We planned to arrive for her birthday, and luckily things worked out. She met us at the train station, then took us to her gorgeous flat in the Jewish District. After being in the countryside for just under a week, it did feel a little bit discombobulating being in a new and unfamiliar city. But being a city girl, I soon adjusted. I fell in love with Budapest instantly. It was vibrant, unpretentious and oozed charm. Everywhere I looked, I found myself being awestruck, either by the architecture, street art, interiors and even the people. Little pockets of the city stood frozen in time, as if going into movie set.

Three-D Tree

Naomi, Jess’s sister also joined us in Budapest for birthday celebrations. We went out in town, had a few drinks, a nice Greek dinner and finished of with some super fancy cocktails at the Warm Up bar.

Birthday cake from mama wise!

Budapest Eat Finger's!!!... ?

Great cocktail bar serving fancy cocktails and shots in the Jewish District

In the morning Jess and I went to the local shops to pick up some food. It was a bit of a strange combination of ingredients: bread and hummus from the Jewish shop, Hungarian sausage from the butchers, and pomelo from the green grocers. Nonetheless, it was perfectly pleasant, and set us up for our busy days.

Breaky

Laura and I went to explore the town whilst Jess went to classes and Naomi worked from home. We went to the Hungarian House of Photography where we found this guy outside. I couldn’t resist, I had to take a picture:

Homeless man peacefully asleep on statue

We did some food shopping on our way home, to make bryndzové halušky in the evening as Jess and Laura had both brought some bryndza from the festival. Wilson, a friend of Jess’s also come over for dinner and was interested in seeing the process.

Wilson helping Laura in the kitchen

Bryndza (sheep's cheese)

Laura’s bryndzové halušky

Laura’s bryndzové halušky
Despite buying the wrong type of flour, the halušky turned out great. We made a few alterations, like making a sour cream and chive sauce to accompany the dish. But it worked pretty well. That night some of Jess’s friends came over and later we went out till the wee hours of the morning. I don’t remember feeling hungry once. It’s a workingman’s dish and can make you feel very sleepy after. Portions don’t have to be too big, although often it’s hard to resist as it taste so good. I find drinking palinka whilst cooking, and before and after the meal helps.

Ingredients (Feeds 6):
4 medium sized potatoes
4 cups of wholemeal flour
1 egg yolk
Bryndza, or a soft sheep's cheese
Smoked pork belly 400g, cubed (must be very fatty)
Sour cream
Chives, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Method:
1. Start by putting the cubed pork belly in a frying pan on a very low heat. It doesn’t require any oil. Check on it from time to time
2. Grate the potatoes on the finest side of a grater. It is hard work, but worth it. I recommend doing it with friends and taking turns. Also have some palinka on the go, it helps
3. Mix in the flour and egg yolk into the potato mixture till it resembles the consistency of mashed potato
4. Bring water to boil in a large sauce pan. Add a pinch of salt
5. Using a flat grater on the smooth side, slowly press through the potato mixture into the boiling water. The halušky will sink at first, so be paitent, and wait till it floats on the surface. You will have to do this in batched. Keep the cooked halušky in a warm container/pot
6. Once all cooked, add the bryndza to the halušky and mix through
7. Make sure your belly lardons are crispy and golden, and that there is enough hot fat in the pan. This is especially important and it melts the cheese a little
8. In a separate bowl mix the sour cream and chives together
9. To serve, spoon some of the halušky mixture onto a plate, add some of the sour cream and chive mixture and top with the belly lardons and some hot fat

The Clean Up

The day after the night before. I should have woken up to a banging headache. Fortunately I didn't. I felt pretty fresh. Maybe it was the clean air, or the quality of the brewed drink, or maybe even the amount of food we ate. I have no idea, but it wasn’t too bad. Great, because we started our day with… yep, some more burciak. Because it only lasts a week, we had to get through it all before it went bad. I didn’t mind, I actually liked the stuff.

For breakfast we had Perkelt, which was also on Patrick’s menu the day before, although we hadn’t had the chance to try it. It is a meat stew, in this case it was local venison, that has a tomato and pepper base and is served over halusky. This particular perkelt was made by Vlado, Patrick’s friend who, like me, has a passion for all things spicy. Nice! The perkelt was spiced with home grown naga morich chillies. It was the best thing I had eaten on the whole trip. The depth of flavour, the slight tang from the tomatoes and the kick from the chilli pepper was refreshing and vastly different from the other food we had tried in Slovakia.

Perkelt

Naga Morich Chilli Pepper

I had to get the recipe. I knew my attempt to make perkelt would never compare to Vlado’s, but it was worth a shot. It was clear when talking to Vlado, that his process of cooking perkelt didn’t really follow a recipe as such, but rather had some important elements to it. For example, he stressed the importance of using pork fat instead of cooking oil. This changes the structure of the stew, so it is thicker and gives the whole dish a richer and deeper flavour. He also said that the peppers and tomatoes had to be cooked right down so that only the skins are left and the excess water from them evaporates. Also, for every kilo of meat a kilo of onions should also be used. (Recipe below).

So after breakfast, the day continued. Jess had to leave to go back to Budapest and there was a great deal of clearing up that needed to be done. Patrick and his buddies got down to this, whilst Laura and I went for a stroll around Stara Hora. The place seemed so different. People were packing up, shifting bits of outdoor furniture, and trying to sell their last gallons of burciak. There was also a massive clean up session that started and finished before we even had time to help out. It was incredible to see the village come together in a joint effort. On our walk, we bumped into Patrick’s older brother, who is also the mayor of the local village. Again in true Slovakian fashion, we were offered a shot of palinka, a bottle of burciak and some food. This time it was cold pork soup with vinegar onions. Weird as it sounds, it was really good.

We got back to the cottage to find ribs cooking on the the barbecue. We weren't complaining. A bottle of Jack Daniels was open and the burciak was put to rest (for a while).

Ribs on the barbecue

Everyone was in a bit of a celebratory mood. The boys had been busy the day before, so didn’t really have time to enjoy the festival, although they did really well and took in nice profit. Some of the older guys from the village popped by. Stories from the festival were shared and a few laughs were had. I had no idea what was being said. I couldn't help but laugh anyway.

It got to that point in the night when everyone was getting a little bit peckish. So, Matush, Patrick’s friend set about cooking. A frying pan was graced with a large spoonful of goose fat, in which a potato pancake was shallow fried and topping with cheese and chives. A jar of pickles was opened and some more JD was poured. I remember wondering at this point when I had my last fresh vegetable. But I didn’t ponder on that thought for too long.

Vlado's Perkelt

So here is as the recipe as suggested by Vlado, and interpreted by me. Apart from ratio of meat to onions, I have not used measurements:

Ingredients:

Pork fat

Onions, finely chopped (Equal ratio to meat)

Venison, or an other red/game meat of choice, small pieces (Equal ratio to onions)

Celery, shredded

Carrots, shredded

Parsley root, finely chopped

Blanched tomatoes, chopped roughly

Peppers, three different colours, chopped roughly

Paprika, hot and sweet

Tomato paste

Red wine, good quality and strong

Naga morich chilli 

Crushed garlic

Marjoram

Parsley leaf finely chopped

Halušky 

Method:

1. Fry onions in pork fat till golden turning brown, then add the chillies and cook till the onions turn golden brown
2. Add the celery, carrots and parsley roots and cook till they melt down
3. Add the meat, and when nearly cooked through add the tomatoes and peppers
4. Let the tomatoes and peppers cook down to a thick sauce. This will take a while. Drink some palinka to kill the time
5. Add the tomato paste and paprika, and cook out the rawness of the spice
6. Pour in the wine, and some water if needed, and allow the mixture to cook on a low heat for as long as possible
7. Add the crushed garlic, marjoram and parsley towards the end
8. Let it rest for one day (ideally)
9. Heat again and service with halušky

Stará Hora, Festival Time

We took the train from Bratislava to Zvolan, where Brian, Patrick's brother, picked us up. It was an hour-long drive to the festival in Stará Hora, where Patrick was running a food and wine stall. Patrick, a friend from Oxford, but originally from Slovakia, had returned home to start a catering company with a couple of buddies, and for them, the day at the folk festival was their biggest gig to date. On arriving I was impressed by the length of the que that ran for a few dozen people to Patrick’s cottage. Excited to see old friends and also hungry to try everything, we sat down to sample the menu:

Laura, Jess and Patrick

Duck leg, with loksami (potato pancake) and stewed red cabbage

Pork chop, with vegetables and beans, served with caraway bread

Kapusta (Smoked lamb and sauerkraut stew)

To accompany the food, we had homemade burciak (young wine), made by Patrick’s dad. This would be the first of many glasses we would drink throughout the festival, which was an opportunity for local wine makers to shift large quantities of the burciak that only lasts for about a week. The chocolate box cottages open up for one day selling food, burciak, wine and crafts. People come from all over Central Europe to the festival, as wine is fantastic quality and is reasonably priced. There is also loads of traditional live music and dancing to keep festival goers entertained.

Cottage dining

Traditional Slovakian gypsy band

We left Patrick to get on with his work, whilst we went exploring the festival. We didn’t make it very far before we were commandeered by a two big Slovakian blokes who had clearly been drinking a lot of burciak. Talking in Slovakian, we had little to no idea what they were saying, but went with the flow anyway. They took us to a table where their friends were sat around drinking and eating and invited us to sit down for some pálinka (home made fruit spirit). One shot, then two, then three. It seemed the more we drank, the more we were able to understand each other. It turned out that one of the guys, Ivan, was a big chef in the area and was also a sponsor of the festival. Ivan was an interesting character. His bolshie attitude was entertaining, but also occasionally crossed the line. Every now and then, he would point to a woman in a pink tracksuit, who was clearly busy, and shout “woman!”. We were like, “yeah… that’s a woman”. Only after Ivan said “tonight me and woman have boxing match” did we realised that she was actually his wife! Everyone laughed. We laughed uncomfortably, not sure if he was serious or not.

Jess and Ivan

We ate some really tasty home-made pastry, supposedly made by Ivan… or his wife, with custard and whipped cream, drank some more palinka, said our dakujem (thanks) and dovi-dina (good day) and set off, to explore a little bit more.

Tasty Slovakian pastries

During the festival cottages open up their wine cellars to visitors, so they can see how the wine is made, try some, and even buy a few bottles to take home. The cellars have to maintain a high level of humidity to produce the right environment to produce the wine. This creates a thick layer of moss on the walls and ceiling, into which you can stick coins. By doing so you promise to come back to buy some more burciak the following year.

Wine cellar, trying some wine

We're coming back next year!

We bought some more burciak and were soon on our way again. We followed the sound of music and stumbled onto a gypsy band playing some very upbeat folk music. We had a little dance, dropped them some coins, then continued on our wonder.

Gypsy band

Soon enough we walked pass another cottage and got some waves from a group of people sat outside. It was Brian, Patrick’s brother and a few of his friends. We went over for... yes, some more burciak, palinka and food. Although Brain and his friends spoke very little English, and our Slovakian was pretty non-existent, we managed to communicate well enough. We mainly talked about food, joked about the village idiot and did a great deal of “na zdravie!” (cheers/good health).  Brian’s mum even stopped by with a some tasty savoury pastries, filled with garlic cream.

Patrick's mum's garlic pastries

We decided to go watch the sun set when the warm fuzzy feeling from the palinka kicked in. We walked through Patrick’s father's vineyard and on the other side came out to rolling hills where a young boy was herding cows. We sat there for a while and watched as the cows were led over the hills.

Walking through the vineyards

Herding cows over the hills

Once the sun had set, we made our way back to the festival to further line our stomachs before drinking some more. At this point we all knew we wanted some bryndzové halušky. A traditional mountain dish that we had made a few times before with Laura’s Slovakian house mates. It uses bryndza, a sheep cheese made locally in the area. The cheese is mixed in with warm halušky, small potato and flour dumplings, and topped with pork lardons and hot pork fat. It’s the perfect drinking food. We managed to stumble upon an ornately decorated cottage selling the dish. We drank some more burciak, made some new friends, and before we knew it, there was a warm bowl of stodgy bryndzové halušky in front of us. We dived in and demolish our serving in no time at all. It was creamy, salty and did the trick in soaking up all the excess palinka. It was delicious, and everything I could have hoped for from my first authentic bryndzové halušky experience.

Waiting for brynzove halusky

brynzove halusky

Bellies filled we headed to the live stage to watch some live music and dance off the burciak. We made some more new friends, ate a spicy sausage, and then headed back to Patrick’s cottage where we hung out a little bit longer, before calling it a sweet night. I remember going to bed with a big content smile on my face.

What will we be eating if TTIP* were to become a reality?

With GMO and cloning laws becoming more lenient to suit larger corporations,
the two-headed porker may become a food of the future.
As crazy as it sounds, gobbling up twice as much feed means that he also fattens up
twice as fast, making him extremely efficient to rear. Now that’s what you call cheap meat! Yum?!

SO what could we be eating in the future? Lets take the humble porker as our example:

1.   Cloning will be a reality. These cloned porkers will be reared for efficiency, and will never see the day light as they will be reared indoors in crowded and distressing surroundings, breaking all British welfare standards we have worked so hard to maintain. The aim is to have more, more, more food, and at a cheaper price, and this will come at larger costs.

2.   Animals reared for meat will be pumped full of antibiotics that will act as a growth promoters. The only way these animals can grow to the abnormal size they do, is if they are pumped full of antibiotics, so that their bodies can’t react to infections caused by the fast rate of growth. This also puts us, the consumers of this meat, at risk of becoming antibiotic resistant. This has the potential for larger health problems to develop.

3.   The demand for GMOs will grow. Currently even conventionally reared meat in the UK is fed GMO grains and soy, but the demand for this will grow immensely as pork production grows. This will put pressure on our natural environment, leading to further destruction of fragile rainforests that will be replaced by miles and miles of mono cropping. Cash crops on this scale go hand in hand with speculation buying, making the market more vulnerable to price fluctuations. GMOs are also known to cause defected growth in young piglets.

4.   Small and medium sized UK Farmers will be pushed out of the market. Competition will open up, and there will be no space for small-scale pig farmers. The mega farm will dominate the market. This will put many rare breed farmers out of business, and will put pressure on medium sized businesses to lower their standards and upscale. This will be disastrous to the rural economy as well as the rural environment.

5.   Bigger porkers, bigger portions, bigger consumers. Cheaper food will have further health implications for the consumer. Although everyone will be able to afford to eat pork everyday, the meat will lack essential natural nutrients found in outdoor reared and organic pork. Lower food standards will also make us more susceptible to MRSA, often found in poorer quality US pork.

This is just the T-TIP of the iceberg. Make you’re voice heard here: http://www.nottip.org.uk/

*TTIP: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a secret trade talk taking place between the EU and the US. Leaked document and the history of trade deals can help us speculate what the outcome of these talks will be. The ultimate aim, is to have freer trade between both parties, which will include deregulating and removing trade barriers (which are currently there for a reason – mainly due to health, safety and consumer protection). These talks will only favour policies that benefit large corporations, leaving the state and the consumer powerless.

Resources:

http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/trade-justice/more/inform/18262-ttip-resources

http://www.iatp.org/documents/10-reasons-ttip-is-bad-for-good-food-and-farming

http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/tags/ttip

Street Market, Yangon, Myanmar

Myanmar, described as the final frontier of Asia. Still in the early stages of development, the country is vulnerable to external exploitations and this is being seen in the heavy influx of foreign investers who all want a cut of the virgin pie.

I am visiting my parents who have moved to Yangon last September (for some of this humble pie) and can not help feeling like I am part of the problem. Listening to expats whine and moan about the poor water quality, the lack of sanitation and the communication issues they have with their drivers is a little tiresome and frustrating. Worse still is the insistent trips to the only three air-conditioned malls/super-markets with "proper coffee", "sugar-free bread" and "cheese". I needed to escape and see what lay beyond Western Superficiality. So I took a trip down-town with chef Tuk Tuk from Horizon Golf Club, and ventured beyond the pagodas and river boats into the busy narrow streets of old Yangon. What I found was the most diverse variety of food, colour, and smells I had experienced since my arrival.

With 80% of the population still relying on agriculture as their main source of income, I truly hope this variety continues as Yangon develops, especially as padi-fields and farms around the city are being gobbled up by factories and high rise buildings. Like similar Asian cities, as competition increases with economic growth, there could be a reduction in variety of produce and an increase in more intensive agricultural practices. I wonder how this would effect the livelihoods of low-input agricultural farmers that supply majority of the city's fresh produce.

The polite patient nature of the Burmese people is something we could all learn from, but I feel it could also be detrimental when it comes to resisting the exploitation of human and environmental rights that are not being stripped by the government, but by foreign hands.

I dont want this post to be overly political. I would just like to show people what is worth preserving...

One of the many market streets in Down Town Yangon

Vegetables

Garnishes

Roots...  

...More Roots... 

...And Pickled Roots

Dried Mushrooms

Achari (Pickles)

Dried Chilli 

Fish Products

Chicken with all the bits and bobs

Live Eels

Fish, prawns, squid, clams and cray fish

Lobster and Langoustine 

Ice!!!

Pig and all the bits and bobs

Flowers

Indoor fish and meat market

Fruit 

Rambutan

Typical street in Old Yangon