Egy francia krémes kérek szépen...

There are many fine cakes to be eaten in Hungary. Pastry shops offer many delicious deserts, treats and ice cream cones. But nothing compares to the francia krémes. Essentially it is a wonderful vanilla custard sandwiched between crispy sheets of flaky pastry dough. If there is one thing I would like to learn how to bake, it is the francia krémes from Auguszt cukrászda.

Remembering WWI in Budapest

Over Memorial Day weekend, I read a post over at Crooked Timber called, "The Great and Unremembered War,"about the different ways World War One is remembered in the United States and Europe. I think the World War One memorial around the corner from Yusaf's flat is a pretty good example of the way war is remembered here. So here are a couple of pictures and I'll post more on the flickr site later.

The history of Hungary in the twentieth century is pretty traumatic. Between 1867 and 1914, the Kingdom of Hungary had achieved a notable measure of political autonomy and economic growth, but things went down hill with WWI. The war itself was brutal, with over 2 million casualties out of 3.6 million Hungarian soldiers. After the war, between October 1918 and November 1919, the country underwent two revolutions, Romanian occupation and a right-wing counterrevolution. In the course of the peace negotiations Hungary lost significant territory to its neighbor Romania and the newly created Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The trauma of the First World War is reflected in local monuments all around Hungary. This one, near the corner of Baross utca and József körút, is a pretty typical example. It both shows the heroic, yet generic stern-faced Hungarian soldier advancing on the enemy trench, but the pedestal has a frieze showing the soldiers marching off to war and leaving behind loved ones. I am not sure about the exact history of this monument, but from what I understand some of these monuments were erected in the Horthy era and others were built under the Socialists, but I need to do more research on this.

After the 1989 Revolution, lots of monuments, especially those associated with World War Two and State Socialism were removed or repurposed (The Gellert Hill Freedom monument is a great example of this kind of landmark recycling). But the World War One monuments have remained, perhaps because there is some consensus on this part of twentieth century Hungarian history. It was downright awful and there is no political capital to be gained from removing or redecorating them, unlike say some of the commemorations of the 1956 Revolutions or World War Two.

My Favorite 'commie modern' building in Bp

To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, "Commies love concrete." The era of "Socialist Construction" in Hungary was littered with gobs of prefabricated concrete apartment blocs and monumental office buildings in the 'neo-brutalist' style. But there were a few architectural gems built too. One of them is the central bus station on Elizabeth square (Erzsibet tér).

Here are two pictures of the mildly renovated bus station. There is a little bit of nostalgia involved. I used to take the bus to Vienna a lot back in the 1990s and in 2000-2001. Nowadays the central bus station is out at the Népstadion (People's Stadium) which I think has been renamed after Ferenc Puskás, the soccer player.

A freshly installed hole

One of the ongoing infrastructure projects in Budapest is Metro 4, the new subway line that connects the city center with South Western Buda. This summer I have been spotting various fenced off parts of the city that are part of the project. Here is a picture of the construction near the Freedom bridge and March 15th Square. They have shut down the bridge, part of the street and closed the #2 tram stop.

Budapest has a long history of holes. When I was here in 2000-2001 they were in the middle of the fight over where the national theater would be. So there was a gigantic, incomplete parking structure/hole in between Elizabeth and Déak Squares. The magyars eventually resolved the impasse between the city government (run by MSZP) and the national government (run by FIDESZ at the time... I think) by building a cultural center.

Budapest!

So, I am off on my research trip to Budapest. Here is a picture of the freedom monument on Gellert hill and the bridges over the Danube. You can find the higher resolution picture on Flikr.

Over the next few weeks I plan on documenting some of my important work in rétes/strudel studies, as well as the pastry techniques of the various Budapest cukraszdas/confectionery shops.

Cricket in Hungary

On Sunday I went with my buddy Yusaf to see a cricket match in Dunabogdány, a small town north of Budapest. Yus is the captain for the Dunabogdány team and invited me to play. It was a lot of fun, I didn't get to bat, but I had a great time fielding. Here is a picture of Andras, one of the Hungarian players, bowling. Its after the release, so you can see the red ball in the upper center part of the picture.

Cricket is a little odd from the American point of view. Its similar to baseball in that you have batters and people throwing balls, but cricket matches last longer and involve breaks for tea and sandwiches (I'd argue that this makes it a little more fun to play). But there are only two bases in cricket, and two batsmen, who switch places when they hit the ball. Its a little bit like baseball in the round. Cricket is more fun to play than it is to explain.