people and places: March 2008 Archives

“Bunică ştie” is something you might find yourself observing on numerous occasions while spending time in the villages of Transylvania.  For every grandmother you would have the good fortune to meet would know an awful lot, about everything.  And everybody knows that granny knows (best).

She knows about looking after animals, and bringing up the grandchildren.  She knows how to milk the cows and turn the milk into butter and cheese.  She knows how to butcher the pig and turn it into bacon, ham, salami and more.  She can make ...

Louis XIV is said to have called the sweet wines of the Tokaj region of Hungary "the wine of kings, and king of wines", and they've been used as diplomatic sweeteners at the highest levels for hundreds of years.  We went to find out what makes them so great, and discovered that they are still the king of wines - perhaps these days even more so than ever before.  However, they now seem to be the wines of very different kinds of kings... 

The puszta - the great plain - is very important to Hungarians.  It may not sound very interesting to outsiders: it's the flattest part of the country, dotted with fairly shabby isolated farms, wells, marshland and perhaps not a great deal else.  But here it means more than that: it holds an important place in the Hungarian imagination and sense of national identity.

As we found out, though, it's also a place to hear lively folk music, eat the best bread and pork fat we've found so far (and that's saying a lot), and learn how to play the pig's bladder while cracking a whip. At least, it is if you're coordinated enough, which one of us was ...

During our quest for the best żurek, pierogi (pictured), barszcz and golonka we came across these rather nice places to eat. 

Should you find yourself in Zakopane, Kraków or Kazimierz Dolny (three of the prettiest towns in Poland), you could do a lot worse than dine here...

Of course, the best place to stay in Poland is where we spent most of our time - with Richard and Marzena and their two lovely daughters at their home in Zakopane. 

But if you’re not lucky enough to know them, you could try one of these other places which we would highly recommend.  (Places we would not recommend not included.)  Most fun is to stay in an agrotourism, along with the goats, rabbits, cows and sheep...

Luckily, by the time we'd reached the remote Bieszczady Mountains we'd learnt enough Polish to recognize that 'kozie sery' meant 'goat's cheeses'.  (It's great being married to a linguist.)  So when the hand-painted wooden sign appeared by the side of the road we slammed on the brakes - and then tentatively approached the farm gate, while two enormous barking dogs approached us from the other side, a lot less tentatively.

The farmer came to our rescue, and proceeded to introduce us to his goats and cheeses with great generosity of spirit.  You'd be forgiven for thinking that in this far-flung corner of southeastern Poland he was making cheese the way his great-grandfather had, according to time-honoured Polish tradition, isolated from the world.  But you'd be wrong (as we were).  In fact, Zbigniew Wantula's cheeses have truly international dimensions, but with traditional cores. We were to discover how Germany, France, Greece and the UK were all playing their part...