I just bought a subscription to the Hungarian online news magazine 444.hu, which is a first for me because I am a crabby cheap old bastard who rarely subscribes to anything. I read 444.hu every day, in fact, but they gated their feature writing and in-depth articles behind a paywall. 444, however, is one of the last holdouts of progressive journalism left in Orbanistan, where the FIDESZ government has bought up a large percentage of the private media and choked off outlets dedicated to investigative reporting and opposition opinion. With Hungary facing a federal election this coming April, independent news sources are crucial. My daily diet of Hungarian news mainly comes from 444, HVG, Telex, and Magyar Hang, and I usually peek at a few of the pro-government sites as well just to get a look at what they are saying in the right wing fever swamp. It isn't like I need more news. I read a lot in Hungarian, but I have always been hampered by the fact that, having not been educated in Hungarian schools, I don't take much satisfaction in Hungarian literature. (If you want to argue with me, first try translating a bit of Krasznohorkai.) I like the colloquial voice, which is, to say the least, not dominant in Hungarian literature. So a lot of my favorite writers are actually mere essayists and columnists, people who write in the voice of actual people. Especially when they can take my mind off of the news.
Szily Laszlo - one of my favorite Hungarian journalists - just started a new series of food reviews in 444. And so yes, I subscribed! Szily's previous food series was about some of the old communist restaurants that still hang on in Budapest. The new series is about eating only tourist food in Budapest. Since I live in the Bulinegyed - the seventh district "party zone" - I see these places popping up weekly. Hungary doesn't have a tradition of "street food" but once it became an idée fixe of industrial tourism, "street food" popped up everywhere. If influencers want street food, influencers shall have street food. One of the most common - and from the vendor's standpoint, most profitable - offerings is lángos. Lángos are simple deep-fat fried dough, often made with a bit of mashed potato mixed into the dough. You could fashion a crispy, chewy pillow of hot carbs that would be slathered in salt and garlic sauce or served sweet with apricot jam. They were sold at stands in open markets, at beaches and from fryer trucks at festivals, When I was a kid visiting Hungary I practically lived on lángos on the beach at Balaton.
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| Lángos as it should be: garlic and salt, upstairs at Klauzál tér market. |
I don't actually eat lángos that much. I'm afraid that when I die and my life passes in front of me I will see visions of a greasy, salty lángos and know that I probably could have stayed on the mortal coil for another few years if I had avoided it altogether. Lángos is the fried pastry of mortality. We are all going to die. And we all have to eat. But nothing ties the two together as well as a lángos.
Lángos were always a simple, trustworthy cure for hunger, but around 1990 things changed. Gradually alternate toppings appeared on lángos: sour cream, grated cheese, ketchup... but the humble dough pie remained a feature of market stalls. Then somebody realized you could take the humble lángos - the most minimal investment in food conceivable - and market it to tourists hungry for a taste of authentic Hungarian food. Heck, you could add topping... like sausages! paprikás stew! caviar! Just watch the profits roll in! Soon the humble market lángos - the joy of destitute students, pensioners, and the homeless - were marketed at restaurant meal prices. You can easily find lángos being sold in the FT 4000-5000 range, the same as an entree in a sit down, downtown restaurant.
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| FT 600 for a plain. Klauzál tér. |
Szily's first adventure takes him to the Retro Lángos near the Parliament, where, for a mere FT 3790 ($11.50 USD) he orders a fusion lángos called "The Peasant" topped with sour cream, cheese, raw red onion, and fried kolbasz. Szily writes What does the Hungarian peasant do? If we can believe the hit product of Retro Lángos, then he gags all day long. No wonder, since there is no peasant who could get air while his entire oral cavity, plus his esophagus, is filled with a rubbery, dense, elastic substance... It wasn't just any cheese, but the cheapest, completely tasteless, usually not even "cheese" anymore, but one of the substitute products sold under the names "pizza topping", "sandwich topping" or similar. I've never eaten grated rubber gaskets or fishing lures made of silicone rubber, because they wouldn't be able to show anything new in comparison
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| The aforementioned "peasant" lángos (courtesy 444.hu) |
Szily's writing alone is worth the price of the subscription, but he is not exaggerating. Very little of the food served to tourists is very good. If you really want a good lángos , go to one of the big vegetable markets outside of the town center. Usually around the back you can find a few kiosks selling roasted meat, sausages, and with luck, decent lángos. I recommend nothing more than garlic water and salt, but the apricot jam is divine as well. Keep it simple.
