The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part 44: Hungaricum - National Travel Exhibition, and a Pig Killing Festival

All 10 national parks were represented at the National Travel Fair again this year. We were there to both highlight the tourism facilities of the parks system, as well as the local officially certified products of each park. Aggtelek National Park has 2 certified local food producers among its 4 certified companies. We brought organic jams from the Koltay's Royal Treats selection in Aggtelek. Early morning on the way to Budapest we stopped at a WC on the highway. In mid-piss I realised that the urinal was flushing but the water was not going down the drain. At a loss of what to do, not yet having fully emptied my bladder, I looked to my right where a second, unoccupied urinal stood, and made a jump. Problem solved. Thank god my boss did not come in with me at the time to occupy the second spot! One of the most interesting displays was a traveling piano. Someone had motorised a full piano and put it on wheels, which was then driven and played by a guy up and down the aisles of the fair. I thought this was ingenious until I discovered it was a player-piano, but it was still cool.

I could say that my recent attendance at the Abádszaló Böller Festival was due to my new-found desire to eat bacon thanks to the tremendous lobbying efforts of my colleagues, but that would be untrue. Instead, the Minister of Agriculture is very keen to promote Hungaricum products and facilities, of which the cave systems of Aggtelek National Park are one. There are both food and non-food related Hungaricums. Kata, my boss Zsolt and I left before dawn to get to the festival 2.5 hours away near Tisza Lake in order to set up the stand before the minister arrived, but we just missed him. I was hoping to arrive after the pig killing, but it went on for most of the morning. In fact, the toilet was just next door and you could hear everything through the walls. The carnage was widespread, with blood trails leading in every direction, pigs hanging in doorways, pig carcases on trollies...It was not for the faint hearted, and certainly not for a vegetarian. I was almost certainly the only vegetarian within 100 km of the place.

It was bitterly cold in the shade, but we traded off and were able to walk around every couple hours and seek sunshine and warmth. The hot tea we packed in a thermos stayed hot all day, but it was not enough to warm up our feet. What's a pig killing without palinka? After a langos at the Fasza Langos truck, we wandered over to the Szicsek Palinka stand from Tiszaföldvár. There were lots of unusal flavours. Kata tried the butternut squash schnapps and I tried the 46% white mulberry. I did not taste anything special from the squash, but the mulberry was very nice and quite smooth. Prices started at 7500 HUF/0.5 litre, otherwise I would have bought a bottle.

We stopped by Imre Papp's honey display and tried the orange-dark chocolate honey. It is 90% honey, and delicious. He had all sorts of interesting flavours. His wife makes the nice packaging. Prices start at 900 HUF. Just too dangerous - we would have eaten it straight out of the jar skipping the bread altogether.

At the Laszlo Kovacses, small producers from Karcag (Hideg u. 1) we tried some yummy pumpkin jam. The flavouring was similar to what we made a couple weeks ago with 3 kg of green pumpkin we got from Simon and Dora at the beginning of winter. Ours by the way is delicious! We bought some csipős paprika cream from them for a just 500 HUF, as well as hot apple juice and hot plum juice, again for a very reasonable 250 huf for 3 dl.

Our direct neighbours were the folks from the Béres Vineyard in Szerencs, not to be confused with the other Béres (the vitamin moguls) in the Tokaj area. The couple were kind enough to let us try some of their wines. I sampled a dry furmint, a semi-sweet and sweet wine. All good, but I did not write down the details.

A local man with a palinka glass around his neck inquired after a colleague who is also from Abádszaló. I commented that he came well prepared with his own glass, and before I knew it he had produced some shot glasses and a flask. That went down a treat.

Every pig killing team set up their own nicely decorated courtyard "country restaurant" where you could redeem your 200 HUF tasting tickets, for which you got heaps of food. Everyone at the Hungaricum stands were treated to a lamb stew, which I thought was like ordering Chinese food at a French restaurant, but there you go. I had a a tocsni/lapcsanka (potato pancake) from some nice ladies that pre-cooked the tocsni and then reheated them on a sparhet and an old-fashoined cast-iron iron filled with hot coals pressing it down. At 300 HUF it was a steal compared to the 1100 HUF for a kürtős kalács (chimney cake).

Long having lost feeling in our feet, we left around 4pm for home. I do not think I have been to the area since 1992 or so when I was on a canoe tour with colleagues from the Ecological Institute for Sustainable Development. There are some nice villages and towns along the way.  I think the Fűzfa Pihenő Park in Poroszló bears closer inspection for a romantic getaway at some point - it looked great from outside. It is also home to the Lake Tisza Ecocentre, home of Europes largest freshwater aquarium system (535,000 litres) which looks worthwhile to check out, especially with the granddaughter.