You may have wondered where I disappeared to. Well, let me tell you, I prepared the podcast and then I was so sick and then I lost my voice. Today we will talk about the upcoming Hungarian Heritage Expo and I will definitely touch on Hungarian food and books relating to Hungarian things – as long as my voice holds out!
This is Episode 103
The big news is that the Hungarian Heritage Expo is starting this week! I am super excited.
If you haven’t heard about the Expo before – it is March 13-16th and it is 4 days of free presentations on Hungarian heritage and culture. It’s entirely online and many of the presentations are pre-recorded so you can watch them from the comfort of your own home!
Did I mention it is free?
You can get your free ticket at Hungarian Heritage Expo there is a link in the show notes.
The event is in English and we have some amazing speakers who are talking all about Hungarian things – language, genealogy, history, folk art, music, wine, food, and more.
There are so many people and organizations who are doing some really cool things and the Hungarian Heritage Expo is such a great platform to share them.
We have speakers from the United States, Hungary, and Transylvania. And even thought it is a lot of work, creating this opportunity is such a fun project for me. And I can’t wait for you to check it out.
When you go to Hungarian Heritage Expo you will see the speakers and their presentations listed. When you sign up for your your free ticket you have the opportunity to participate in the Expo Chat, an area to answer some questions like
Who in your family left Hungary and when?
Did you hear the Hungarian language as you were growing up?
When your family left Hungary, where did they end up settling?
And to see the answers of the other participants. If you look through the answers you will see a wide variety of experiences, which is part of what makes this so fun for me. Some people are like me and their grandparents left in the early 1900s. Others have ancestors who came more recently or were born in Hungary themselves. Some of us know some Hungarian while others are confident speakers! I love the variety of experiences that are represented!
So, grab that free ticket and enjoy the great presentations – get some ideas for your family history project, learn about Hungarian wines, make some new cultural connections with organizations you may not have heard of before! Take a deep dive and learn all about various aspects of Hungarian heritage and culture at the Hungarian Heritage Expo!
I hope I have been able to communicate my enthusiasm for this project. We had such great feedback from last year and so we are doing it again! Come join the fun!
So, I have had to revise my podcast plan. I think it was a little too ambitious given all the things we do. And, I am still in recovery. In fact, I am sure you can tell that my voice is still off today but there is too much to talk about so I will power through!
Comfort foods – you know, their personal, individual. And when they are tied to our ethnic identity, it feels like it is rooted in our soul.
When I think about some of my favorite comfort foods, they are Hungarian. I know you have heard me say my mom was an amazing cook and a great baker, too. Even though she was a single mom with four kids, I recall eating Hungarian food weekly. Typically, Hungarian food is not complicated. I have small village on nearly all sides. So, while the food is basic it is also incredibly tasty. I don’t think my mom thought she was going to make something Hungarian so we would learn more about our culture. She made it because it came naturally to her. She had enough experience with the dish that it was easier to make that than it was try a new, unknown recipe. It just so happened that it was delicious. I loved coming home to a kitchen filled with the aroma of “Hungarian soup” – that beautiful clear, golden broth, the bone marrow we spread on toast, the whole vegetables and the thread noodles.
Aside from the health benefits of a slow cooked, bone broth soup, it is a part of my comfort foods line. So, for starters, there is a two-fold reason for me to make it.
When we visited the relatives in Hungary for the first time in 2012, they rolled out some amazing food. I think they wanted to introduce some Hungarian staples in terms of meals. They wanted to surprise us with delicious Hungarian food. And, of course, we were meeting for the first time. So, they didn’t know we knew all about these foods.
Our kids were delighted because their favorites were being served. Foods like my mom used to make – and this wasn’t even my mother’s family line.
And they were delighted that we knew these dishes. They could see that Hungarian culture was getting passed within our family line in a variety of ways, including food.
So, as I mentioned on the last episode of the podcast,
Even though they are some regional differences in dishes, there are some things that are quite similar.
