“While investigating gastronomy, we are researching the history of a group of people. Food culture belongs to us to the same extent as our ethnography, music, religion, language or climate. ” (István Kiszely).
As different eras passed, so have our eating habits been enriched with newer and newer elements. This however, does not mean that our ancestors abandoned the old ways – quite on the contrary, new meals were integrated into the menu and soon lived along with the already proven, popular dishes. In times of poverty, people ate less meat, more porridge; and in fact, poverty may have lasted for a hundred years in some areas. As nutrition is closely related to lifestyle, let us first take a look at how our ancestors lived.
About 1000 years ago, Rye Island was mostly inhabited by equestrian tribes of nomadic Hungarians. Many people think that the nomads were wandering around Europe or in the Carpathian Basin. It may be true, with the little addition that these tribes always had their central sites within 50-100 km. Furthermore, when King Stephanus created the county system, people did not establish settlements immediately. It took a long time, even several centuries, to settle down. Those living on Rye Island for instance, remained semi-nomads until the second half of the 19th century. This means that the majority of the families already lived in built houses, their animals however, were kept in the fields both in winter and in the summer, not collected under shelter. This is called open pasture (szilajtartás/ridegtartás). In this region, stables were not widespread until 1800-1850, even then only used for backyard animals. (There used to be stables earlier as well, but they were not widespread.) Animals for sale were kept uncovered for a long time even after the above mentioned period. Another interesting fact is that a large ratio of the population on Rye Island were “field man”, meaning they pursued a collecting lifestyle. They fished, hunted, picked mushrooms, gathered rosehips — in short, masses lived primarily from what God had given to them. In summary, since the Hungarians lived a nomadic and later a semi-nomadic lifestyle, they lived primarily from animal husbandry (meat eating) and not from farming. This is especially true for Rye Island, which was originally a wetland with swampy areas and limited lands for agriculture. The saying that Hungarians ate meat with meat can also be traced back to their lifestyle. Their staple, standard diet has been accessed in three ways: via animal husbandry, fishing and hunting, which were typical on Rye Island.
Let us investitage the first big group. They kept mainly Hungarian animal species, namely gray cattle and mangalica (pigs), but they also knew sheep, goats and poultry. Freshly cut, raw pieces of meat were simply hung to dry on the side of the yurt (nomad tents). They covered the meat to hide it from flies, and that’s it. The flesh did not get spoiled, neither did it dry out. Naturally, they tried to process the meat as fast as possible - then cut another animal and access fresh meat again. The other thing is that it was not by chance that families sent a “taster” to their relatives and friends. Today we bring some for you, and next time you bring some for us ... The early division of labor was formed like this. And what did they eat with the meat? Indigenous vegetables, above all cabbage, carrot, and regarding cereals: millet. They usually made one-course meals and cooked the meat (unlike Western Europeans, who were more of “baking peoples”). Ancient housewives were familiar with the myriad variations of combinations of cabbage and meat in one-course meals. Many of which are popular to this day: covered cabbage, stuffed cabbage, Szekler’s cabbage and so on. They often made fried pies to eat along, such as lángos. Nota bene they were always baked dry, mostly in the furnace, not in hot grease or oil, as nowadays. These are our oldest dishes. Our ancestors loved sauces and dressings -from vegetables. Today we eat meat as topping with vegetable pottages – whereas our ancestors ate vegetables with meat, as a side dish. Further ancient meals contain also sorrel, spinach, dill, pumpkin and green bean pottages, as well as the “American innovation”: potato pottage. And once we are on Rye Island - we must note that pottages are never thickened with milk and flour in this region, but always with a Roux, adding red pepper. Coated fried meat – which is widespread today - was not known by our ancestors (this is why it is named „Wiener schnitzel”, after its origins). Potatoes were brought from America by Christopher Columbus, and rice does not grow in our country either. Broths, as used today, such as the Újházi hen soup, are modern inventions. Moreover, it is not an old thing to eat with a knife and a fork either - it is only due to the urbanization which began in the 19th century. Before that, people were eating by hand or spoon, often from a common plate!
It is also important to mention the specific Rye Island fish dishes. Fishing, on Rye Island has an enormous, nowadays declining culture, a thousand years old heritage. It should be pointed out that the area provided spawning grounds of sturgeons (Acipenseridae), including Huso huso (beluga or giant sturgeon) a fish species that is now almost extinct. The latter is so delicious that in the Middle Ages kings appointed a commissioner to guard the process of catching in Komárom. Different methods and tools were developed for fishing - and of course the way the fish was prepared was also extremely varied. Many people believe that fish soup is an ancient Hungarian dish. This is not true at all, in fact spicy juices were not liked by our ancestors at all. The spread of fish soup is the effect of a different culture. Our ancestors fried fish over an open fire (the flesh of the fish cooks quickly) until it became nicely crispy. Sometimes they also dried it: the fish cleaned of scales were simply exposed to a place where the air moved around. (Like meat, fish were allowed to dry at the edge of the yurt.) A typical ancient Rye Island dish is sour fish, also known as vinegar fish, which is still prepared by housewives today. The fish is fried and then placed in a vinegar-onion marinade to stay edible longer. Walnut fish is a special dish of Dunaszerdahely: walnuts are mixed with breadcrumbs in which fish is coated before frying. Fish stuffed with vegetables is also worth mentioning.
Hunting was also part of everyday life on Rye Island. Our ancestors operated a wide variety of hunting methods. For example, they were archers (remember, we are a nation of archers), but there was another typical way to catch small game. This is falconry - it is no coincidence that one of the villages near Dunaszerdahely is called Solymoskarcsa (as sólyom means falcon). Of course, these methods have been pushed back and extinct by time, but we can say that people around here worked with very sophisticated, specific tools. For example, they had traps in which a stretched bow was placed, which caught the trapped animal. In the early days, everybody was equipped with the knowledge of this hunting mode.
There were times during which ordinary people were not always allowed to hunt in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary. Although hunting could be banned in this area by any means, even a gamekeeper could be ordered to watch the area - it was impossible to catch illegal hunters in the swamps, wet corners, trickling veins and thick reeds of the Rye Island. They could hide in countless places, so no one around here took the regulations on prohibition seriously.
One should also spare a moment to the supplementary nutrition on Rye Island. Bread was a stand-alone food, fruits were different than they are today, and wine has been around for a long time. The raw material for pasta was first millet, later rye, wheat and corn. These were processed and prepared in a thousand ways: we are aware of countless variations of porridge, cooked and fried noodles. The most popular, of course, were bread, pita, and porridge. The latter was often cut out, cooked or baked. Our ancestors ate bread with onions as an independent dish.
Pasta consumption on Rye Island became prevalent in the last third of the 19th century - when the waters were drained, canals and dams were built, as a consequence of which agriculture and grain cultivation grew widespread. Milk was consumed in countless forms. The population enjoyed cow's milk (Hungarians ate everything with cottage cheese, not sheep's cheese), but they also processed buffalo, sheep, goat and even horse milk. They produced cheese, butter, cottage cheese and kefir. Naturally, they also grew fruit, although this was not typical of the locals. Interestingly, fruits back then looked different than they look today, and they also tasted different - today’s varieties have already undergone multiple breeding. One thing is sure, though: when the Hungarians entered the Carpathian Basin, they already knew grapes and wine. Evidence of this is that we have not adopted the term 'vino', which is widespread in Europe. This certainly means that winemaking is definitely part of ancient Hungarian culture.
It is important that people on Rye Island become familiar with their traditional meals! Let us just have a look at the Italians, the French or even the Croats and see how proud they are of their gastronomy! While visiting these countries, we can see restaurant after restaurant offering traditional dishes. It would be nice if we also realised this value and were proud of our own food. It would also strengthen our identity - if we want to survive, we need to preserve our ethnic symbols, among which gastronomy has a special place. One of the many possibilities for this is that we serve Hungarian dishes in our restaurants. After all, we have something to be proud of!
