The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXIX: Miskolc and More Mushrooming
The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXIX: Miskolc and More Mushrooming
The 1 year old Al-Ko lawnmower suddenly started spewing black smoke last week so we had to take it into the service centre in Miskolc. Luckily it is under a 3-year warrantee. The motor had burned out, so we went back for our replacement on Friday afternoon. Kata had never been to downtown Miskolc so we spent a couple hours looking around the centre. I used to travel to Miskolc a couple times a month when I was working for Green Action and the Ecological Institute for Sustainable Development in the early 1990s. Miskolc and the streams and rivers that run through it used to be one of the most polluted areas of Hungary. After economics and politics shut down some of the heavy industry, local NGOs like Green Action successfully campaigned for environmental cleanup, and the main walking street was renovated, this area of the city has become quite nice. There are some very beautiful buildings along the main walking and tram street, and the air is much cleaner than Budapest's. Kata spotted a wrought-iron covered terrace area and what looked like a Bayern-type flag at the far end so we checked it out. It was indeed a beer garden. Not only that, it was a microbrewery! The Kortyolda does not just have great beer, but it is dirt cheap and has 1.5 litre takeaway filled for you on the spot. The beer is actually brewed by Serforrás in Felsőzsolca also run by the owner of the restaurant. At 400 HUF a litre, we had trouble deciding. The matter was made easier by them being out of Indian Pale Ale, so we bought 1.5 litres each of the dark beer, chestnut, and Paracelsus (honey, orange, ginger). The dark beer was good but for me lacked fizz. The chestnut tasted more like hazelnut and was fantastic! We have not tried the Paracelsus yet. What makes the beer even more special is that it is made with Hernád Valley malt, karst water, and sweet Tokalj azsú wine.
Kortyolda
Miskolc, Szinva terasz
Tel: 46-783-635
Email: info@kortyolda.hu
We also walked into the Erzsébet Baths which had been under renovation the last time I had seen it during a stag party many years ago. The building sports a big glass cupola which I always imagined covered the thermal pools. The receptionist kindly let us go up and see the cupola and the roof terrace. The glass cupola covers a conference room, not the pool. While beautiful, it is very hot. There is also a well-stocked health food and organic shop on the ground floor.
There is no rest for the wicked, and Saturday morning I set off mushrooming with Sanyi. There was a spectacular sunrise over the valley with a blanket of fog over the lake. People have been finding buckets full, but as far as we were concerned our search of the bay bolete, was still mostly luckless. Rather than come home empty handed, I picked a half-bucket of green brittlegill, parasol (özlabú), chantarelle (roka), blusher (szamoca) and Caesar's mushroom (uri/chazar gomba).
Up early and finished early, I then had to process the mushrooms and cook up some of what was ripe in the garden. I boiled, bagged and froze 1.25 of mushrooms; baked some bread; made some carrot top-cilantro pesto; and tossed together a Bermuda green bean salad. Carrot greens are edible in a variety of ways, including various pestos, tea and raw in salads. There are many recipes on the web, so don't throw those yummy greens away. The pesto was delicious! Kata's daughter left us a bunch of overripe bananas, so I also made some banana bread with some of the last of the previous year's walnuts.
Up at 5am on Sunday to weed, Tibi and Ivan then showed up at 7 to finish and install our custom mosquito window frames. This was a very necessary investment - the bugs are horrible this year. Since we had had miserable luck finding bay boletes over the last few weeks with Sanyi, I asked my forest ranger colleagues Roland and Norbi if we could tag along sometime. We met them at Aggtelek National Park's Salamander House Hostel and Environmental Education Centre in Szögliget. Kata had not been here yet either, so we took a few moments and checked out the playground, outdoor stucco bread oven, and spoke with the manager Rita while she processed her 5 shopping baskets of bay boletes from her outing in Aggtelek the day before.
We filled up our water bottles at the Tetves Spring and set off at a very brisk pace that was maintained until the end. Norbi and Roland only had eyes for giant puffball mushrooms. The first I ever ate of these was while helping to prepare the site for the future eco-village of Gyűrűfű. Fourteen adults could not finish the stew made with a single puffball. I later picked these regularly in a neighbour's sheep pasture while working on an organic goat farm in The Netherlands. At the organic market in Amsterdam, these are cut with a wire cheese cutter and sold by the slice. On the other hand, we were happy to find any edible mushroom. The moss covered rocks and forest were not only pretty, but also much cooler than the 34 C heat out in the open. No puff balls were located, but again, we came away with a few green brittlegill, parasol (özlabú), chantarelle (roka), and blusher (szamoca), as well as the one bay bolete thanks to Kata's eagle eye. We descended from about 400m altitude along the Szádvár Nature Trail past the turn-off for the abandoned Polish village of Derenk. We passed within 400m Szád Castle, one of the most valuable historic sites in the Park, but were just too hot and tired to look this time. The trail is very nice, so we will be back for a look. Back home, I processed and cooked up the day's find fried in some homemade butter from our neighbours the Vargas, and generous handfuls of our own garlic, topped cream and our own parsley.
I finally had some bay bolete success with Sanyi on Sunday. It was an exhausting search, hiking over hills for 3 hours, but we each finally came away with a bucket full of bay boletes and a few cute Caesars. Blushers were extremely prevalent, but very brittle. I picked half a bag of those as well to make into mushroom pate. I was very tired by the time I got home, but there was still another 3 hours or so of processing to complete. We cleaned and sliced the mushrooms and put them out to dry on our old screen door in the sun. In three days they should be ready to jar. If this goes well, we will dry more and perhaps grind them into powder for seasoning as well. This should also help us save some space in the freezer.