Makifoods, one of the premier cooking schools in Budapest, and recently cited as among the Best of Budapest in Timeout Magazine, kicked off its new season with a press conference and of course, a number of treats to try courtesy of their new teachers. Makifoods also uses Fair Trade organic spices from Treehugger Dan's. Tamas Bereznay, who has been, among other things, the chef for outgoing Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom and head chef of the Karpatia Restaurant, will be teaching Hungarian specialties while Rachel Raj will concentrate on Jewish foods from her grandmother's recipe book. Maki's husband Endre introduced the new programs, including the Kukta (steam cooker) Program that takes on volunteer chef students. Rachel explained that she will be teaching people to cook with the tools at hand, no special ingredients, and demonstrating that even on a Friday night after work and alongside the kids one can still make a good, traditional meal. Tamas' style is to show that cooking is relaxing, even meditative. He also emphasised that Hungarian food is not necessarily unhealthy, and
in fact, anything is edible. When I asked him about my kovaszos uborka experiment this summer that went mouldy, he became very enthusiastic about cooking in and with bread a thickening agent and flavoring. Now to the food...
I am not sure what I ate as a kid in a Jewish home, probably just hamburgers, but I have actually tried very little Jewish food. OK, I make great matzoball soup, good bagels, and love potato pancakes, but until yesterday I had never tried flodni - and still have not tried solet. Flodni is a multi-layered cake with apple, poppyseed and god knows what else. It was yummy, as were Tamas' medvehagyma pogacsa. I had to skip the pork-laden cabbage-bacon pogacsa. The vegan beet-chocolate cake with vanillia icing was delightful - and to quote comedian Paul Foot - "very moist." Seriously. The carmelized rice and maple syrup popcorn was good, but as can be expected, very sticky. I still remember when I went to my first movie in Scotland, "Die Hard," sat down with my popcorn, stuffed the first handful into my face, and spit it all out on the floor. Sweet popcorn - who does that?! Makifood's variant was good - I expected it this time because I read the label. The most exotic item on offer was madartej with yuzu presented in eggshells. Maki says yuzu is an "ugly Japanese lemon." I remember some of these floating in bags in the public baths in Kyoto. Cutting the tops of the eggs of properly (with a special tool) and sterilizing the eggs was a lot of work for the student chefs, but it was worth it - eaten/drunk as a shot.
Classes start soon.

Those who purchase a pass by September 20th can get 15% discount. During registration you just have to add the coupon code "szep20". In addition those who register until the above date will automatically enter their sweepstake and three lucky winners will receive "Knife Technique Class" gift vouchers. Those who buy any of the passes in the fall period will receive the autographed copy of Tamas Bereznay's cookbook. For any more information please visit their website: http://makifood.com/.