Hungary

In Hungary the main Christmas meal is eaten on Christmas Eve, a fast day on which fish traditionally stands in for meat. Halászlé, a fish soup red with sweet and hot paprika, is most often made that evening, and rántott hal, breaded fried fish, comes with krumplisaláta, a potato salad dressed with vinegar and onion. For dessert many families bake bejgli with both poppy seed and walnut fillings, since folk belief ties walnuts to protection and poppy seeds to prosperity. The tree is decorated on Christmas Eve and hung with szaloncukor, wrapped fondant candies that stay on the branches until Epiphany.

The Hungarian chapter is built on paprika, pork and sour cream. Gulyásleves, the goulash soup of the cattle herders, and Jókai-bableves, bean soup with smoked hock and sausage, are eaten as full winter meals. Székelykáposzta stews pork with sauerkraut, marhapörkölt is the thick beef stew most people abroad call goulash, served with nokedli, and rakott krumpli layers potatoes, eggs and smoked sausage. Túrós csusza tosses noodles with túró and bacon. Farsangi fánk, the Carnival doughnut with a pale ribbon around its middle, is made from Epiphany to Ash Wednesday, and almás pite is baked in winter from stored apples.

The Hungarian menu opens with Hortobágyi palacsinta, thin pancakes filled with meat stewed with paprika and covered with a paprika and sour cream sauce. The main course is Paprikás csirke, chicken in a paprika sauce finished with sour cream, served with nokedli, small egg dumplings. Dessert is Rigó Jancsi, a chocolate cake named for the Romani violinist who ran off with Clara Ward, a Detroit-born princess, in 1896 and married her in 1898.

The Hungarian menu follows the Easter basket, which holds ham, eggs, horseradish and braided kalács for the blessing. After the Holy Saturday Resurrection procession, March 27, 2027, and again at Easter breakfast, the ham is served with horseradish, eggs and kalács. In north-eastern Hungary the basket also holds sárgatúró, a sweet egg cheese sliced with the ham. Kaszinótojás, casino eggs, belong on the cold platter set out for Easter Monday visitors on March 29. Easter Sunday lunch brings báránypörkölt, a paprika lamb stew, and the meal closes with túrós rétes and diós béles. Zöldborsóleves, pea soup, is an everyday spring soup.