As part of the team representing Aggtelek National Park at the 76th annual National Agriculture and Food Exhibition, I was at the HungExpo all day last Saturday and Sunday. The fair took over most, if not all of the grounds and exhibited everything from cows, tractors, palinka, jams, cheeses, horses, you name it. All ten of Hungary's national parks were represented in a large circle with a common kitchen in the middle. The ten national parks, in alphabetical order are: Aggtelek, Balaton Uplands, Bükk, Danube-Drava, Danube-Ipoly, Ferto-Hansag, Hortobagy, Kiskunsag, Koros-Maros, and the Orseg.

All the national parks offered free tastings of their newly quality branded products (full list here). There were jams, honeys, palinkas, truffle products from the Bükk, sausages from grey cattle...Aggtelek National Park displayed palinka from Fruktarium in Trizs, and mushroom, jam and fruit syrup products from the Koltays in Aggtelek. I would like to try the palinka from Concord grapes sometime, since in the US, we only seem to use this grape variety to produce the most common kind of jam for our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Aggtelek's hucul horses participated in both demonstration rides and races at the Kincsem Park race course, and raced in the National Gallop at Heroes' Square. Aggtelek took third prize in the brood mare category at Kincsem Park.