Budapest (**Maurice**/Flickr)
What's it like to live in a far-off place most of us see only on a vacation? Foreign Correspondence is an interview with someone who lives in a spot you may want to visit.
Carolyn Banfalvi, 33, is a writer/publisher who has lived in Budapest, Hungary, the last eight years. She is a native of the Washington area; her husband, Gabor, is from Hungary. She is the author of "Food Wine Budapest" (Terroir Guide, $24.95) and is the founder of Taste Hungary, a culinary tour company (www.tastehungary.com).
Question: How much Hungarian cuisine do you eat?
Answer: I cook Hungarian at home, but not too often; my husband's mother only cooks Hungarian. When we dine out, I'd say it's 50-50 Hungarian. I like a good hamburger, but don't eat them here. They're not that good.
Q: What's good in Hungary?
A: All of the markets in Budapest have good fruits and vegetables and a good selection of meat. There are many butchers and you can buy different cuts -- and more unusual things than you'd find in America. They use most any part of the animal.
Some typical Hungarian dishes are really good. Chicken paprika is one of the more famous, with sour cream sauce and paprika sauce. It is served with flour and egg dumplings, which are like spaetzle. There's halaszle -- "fisherman's soup" -- which usually has two or three kinds of fish and a lot of paprika.
Q: Just add paprika and you're there?
A: It's a big ingredient in many best-known dishes but not in everything. Hungarian food is sort of unknown outside the country. A basic sort of cooking method you begin many dishes with is sauteing onions in bacon fat and adding paprika.
They use a lot of sour cream as garnishes. They're big pork eaters -- it's the meat of choice. Bacon is big, too.
Budapest is famous for Austo-Hungarian desserts, like fancy layered cakes and a kind of pancake that's like French crepes. It's called palacsinta.
Q: Where do you live in Budapest? What's it like?
A: We're in District 1, sort of under the Buda Castle. I live about three blocks up from the Danube in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Budapest. Most buildings were built in the late 1800s but many in my neighborhood are from the 1700s. A couple are from even earlier, like a bath house built during Turkish times. It's from the 1500s and is still in use.
Our condo was built in the 1930s, but the city has a much older feel. Most older buildings have a central courtyard with balconies around it.
The buildings are sturdy compared to in the U.S. The walls are made of brick -- they don't use drywall -- and covered over with plaster. We redid the plumbing and electricity a couple years ago and had to drill channels in the wall for pipes and wires.
We have 12-foot ceilings and windows. It's a classic building.
Q: You're between the Danube and the castle. Is your neighborhood overrun with tourists?
A: You see big groups of tourists at Buda Castle but there's no place in Budapest where you feel like you're walking between bus groups. You see small groups and individuals on my street all the time, but Budapest is different from Prague, where you see big groups of tourists everywhere.
Q: The Danube: How beautiful, how blue?
Carolyn Banfalvi, 33, is a writer/publisher who has lived in Budapest, Hungary, the last eight years. She is a native of the Washington area; her husband, Gabor, is from Hungary. She is the author of "Food Wine Budapest" (Terroir Guide, $24.95) and is the founder of Taste Hungary, a culinary tour company (www.tastehungary.com).
Question: How much Hungarian cuisine do you eat?
Answer: I cook Hungarian at home, but not too often; my husband's mother only cooks Hungarian. When we dine out, I'd say it's 50-50 Hungarian. I like a good hamburger, but don't eat them here. They're not that good.
Q: What's good in Hungary?
A: All of the markets in Budapest have good fruits and vegetables and a good selection of meat. There are many butchers and you can buy different cuts -- and more unusual things than you'd find in America. They use most any part of the animal.
Some typical Hungarian dishes are really good. Chicken paprika is one of the more famous, with sour cream sauce and paprika sauce. It is served with flour and egg dumplings, which are like spaetzle. There's halaszle -- "fisherman's soup" -- which usually has two or three kinds of fish and a lot of paprika.
Q: Just add paprika and you're there?
A: It's a big ingredient in many best-known dishes but not in everything. Hungarian food is sort of unknown outside the country. A basic sort of cooking method you begin many dishes with is sauteing onions in bacon fat and adding paprika.
They use a lot of sour cream as garnishes. They're big pork eaters -- it's the meat of choice. Bacon is big, too.
Budapest is famous for Austo-Hungarian desserts, like fancy layered cakes and a kind of pancake that's like French crepes. It's called palacsinta.
Q: Where do you live in Budapest? What's it like?
A: We're in District 1, sort of under the Buda Castle. I live about three blocks up from the Danube in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Budapest. Most buildings were built in the late 1800s but many in my neighborhood are from the 1700s. A couple are from even earlier, like a bath house built during Turkish times. It's from the 1500s and is still in use.
Our condo was built in the 1930s, but the city has a much older feel. Most older buildings have a central courtyard with balconies around it.
The buildings are sturdy compared to in the U.S. The walls are made of brick -- they don't use drywall -- and covered over with plaster. We redid the plumbing and electricity a couple years ago and had to drill channels in the wall for pipes and wires.
We have 12-foot ceilings and windows. It's a classic building.
Q: You're between the Danube and the castle. Is your neighborhood overrun with tourists?
A: You see big groups of tourists at Buda Castle but there's no place in Budapest where you feel like you're walking between bus groups. You see small groups and individuals on my street all the time, but Budapest is different from Prague, where you see big groups of tourists everywhere.
Q: The Danube: How beautiful, how blue?
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