Considering the Ministry of Agriculture was the main sponsor of the event, I would have liked to have seen the organisers place big refillable soda water tanks at various places for the booths rather than getting handfuls of small disposable PET bottles. There should have at least been a recycling area.

This past weekend Kata and I travelled to Jászapáti for the Wheat Harvest and Bread Festival. I was feeling grateful and hopeful that I would finally be working an Aggtelek National Park stand where I could eat something, unlike the Pig Killing Festival earlier in the year.

Kata had to work until 8pm, so we got a late start and only arrived at 0:30. The trip should have taken 2 hours, but we spent over an hour on route 31 waiting for countless traffic lamps to allow us to proceed on the now 1-lane road. Imagine, earlier in the week we had been listening to an album of Gábor Presser's music covered by others, including blues singer Bill Déak - and there he was coming out of the gas station toilet on the M3.

We were booked at the Frikandó Fogadó for the weekend, but since the Fogádó organised the restaurant for the festival, we had breakfast at the local school dormitory. Having missed dinner, I had had dreams of a big hearty breakfast, but what was waiting was half a tomato, half a pepper and some sliced white bread accompanied by very sweet cocoa and tea. This is apparently what is known as the "nursery school breakfast" in Hungary. Kata and I set up the stand with Kata's artist's eye and waited for the event's patron Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazékas to make his tour. We and five other of the Hungarian national parks were here at his invitation to promote national park certified local products. We had brought a selection of the Koltay's delicious organic jams, cordials and dried mushrooms.

We were told that the minister would come by around 9:45, but by lunchtime there was still no sign so I thought he had come and gone already to another appointment or festival. I felt I could safely go see what the organisers had come up with for a vegetarian lunch since everyone else was chowing down to lamb stew from the lamb stew cooking competition. We got a kind of Greek salad without the olives or cheese. I was happy for a cold meal since the temperature had reached 41.5 °C (106.7 °F), but the salad needed some help. Conveniently located 2 stands down was Láci from Nárcisz Cheese, and after sampling a few of his delicious hard cheeses I settled on his suggestion of a 5 month old hard cow cheese (they also have sheep and goat). I kind of recognised the cheeses, and it turns out that the farm is in Debrecen and I blogged about them in September 2012 after a visit to the Szimpla Kert Market. As I began cutting chunks of cheese into our salads with Kata's pocket knife in hand, of course the minister arrived. Oops.

Surprisingly, there was very little to see of bread products at a so-called Bread Festival. Eighty mázsa (1 mázsa = 1000 kg) of wheat were donated from national and international farmers (Slovenia, Romania, Croatia...) for the purpose of baking a national loaf. This wheat was delivered by a series of horse-drawn carriages. But where was the bread? Where were the baked goods? Why a lamb stew cooking contest and not something to do with bread? I will never know. Luckily the Tukacs brothers (06-20-493-3084, tukacsroland@gmail.com) came to the rescue with their amazing kenyér lángos and pogácsa. Norbi and Roland have been doing this for 8 years, even though one is trained as a food engineer and the other as a building engineer. They travel the country with a converted trailer that folds out into a bread baking station and wood-fired oven. When you get kenyér lángos (basically a Hungarian sour cream based pizza slice) at festivals it is usually a mass produced with cheap ingredients. The Tukacs brothers use high quality ingredients and make their round lángos individually, not on a big baking try to be sliced up into rectangular pieces. We asked if there was a vegetarian option and they said, yep, no problem, come back in 20 minutes when it is fresh. It was loaded with sour cream, onions and cheese, and was a perfect complement to the salad. Truly unlike anywhere else, as are their phenomenal pogácsa (and just 300 HUF/10!).

We also had time to speak with Ilona and Béla Kis from Jaszberény. Ilona suffered a stroke a while ago which has slowed her down, but has also given her the motivation to keep busy in different ways. Ilona makes an amazing variety of figures and building models out of straw and ironed straw (Jaszberény Pórtelek, Szentimre Tanya 73, 06-30-476-1538). Béla's sister Mária also has a business making intricate cakes out of crunchy toffee (06-57-456-187) in any design you want.

There was also Krisztof Ambrus that not only is a stilt walker, but also a cheese maker whom we met in his cheese making capacity at the Diosgyör Castle Festival last year.

Having read that Jászapáti features the Tölgyes thermal pool complex, we decided to take a plunge. Even if the water was warm it would be refreshing. Tölgyes is open until 8pm, and we spent a couple hours in the brown waters of various thermal baths and pools. If you go after 4pm, entry is about half-price (850 HUF). Then we went in search of dinner. Even though the Ministry of Agriculture had spoken with the organisers on our behalf, the promised vegetarian dinner did not appear. The only restaurant downtown was the Alibaba Gyros and Pizza where we had very unimpressive and greasy gyros. At this point I was desperate for a cold beer, but not only was Alibaba a dry hole, but the entire centre of the town lacked any form of pub. On the other hand, you could get your old rolls of film developed or buy fireworks. Go figure. Luckily we had packed a bottle of Janus Rosé and we were able to cool off a bit, helped by a big thunder storm that hit soon after we go back to the inn.

While the centre of Jászapáti appears to be alcohol-free, its bakery is open late and on Sundays. We were able to supplement our meagre ovi breakfast with a couple pastries before heading back to the festival grounds. While there was a packed cultural programme both days, there was nothing to draw people the second day as there was the first (no cooking competition, parade...). Therefore, very few people attended the second day. I had the feeling that Kata and I were the big shoppers of on Sunday. We bought 500g of cheese from Láci, and a handmade basket for mushrooming and also some ceramic snowdrop flowers and mushrooms from the Duna-Ipoly National Park.

One of the people to visit the booth was a local and was able to recommend an alternative route home that would for the most part avoid the construction on route 31. His directions were good and we were able to shave off over an hour of travel time. On the way, we passed a number of interestingly named fishing lakes near Heves, such as the Biztató (Reliable), Fárasztó (Tiring)...

Considering the Ministry of Agriculture was the main sponsor of the event, I would have liked to have seen the organisers place big refillable soda water tanks at various places for the booths rather than getting handfuls of small disposable PET bottles. There should have at least been a recycling area.