June Meyers’ Authentic Hungarian

Check out this website for a Hungarian home cook who decided to finally write down the recipes her family had passed on for generations.  Don’t you want her as your Hungarian grandma?

If you have time, by all means browse her recipes and read the stories attached.  They fill me with a longing I can’t quite explain.  This is not just the way to eat, it’s the way to live.  My husband’s Slovakian family, who emigrated here after the war, still has this something, whatever it is.  But will it survive another generation?

 I love this gem from the cookbook, called Gypsy Bacon:

My father was born in Romania. His Grandfather taught him how to make Gypsy Bacon over the campfire and he taught his children. I remember sitting around the camp fire in the local Forest Preserve, holding a stick with a chunk of smoked bacon over the coals. Potatos were buried in the embers and opened cans of pork and beans were standing on stones in the campfire. Someone was alway dropping their bacon on the dirt or the grass. Pick it up and burn off the dirt. Eat it. Delicious.

Regards, June Meyer.

Prepare a smoked cured slab of bacon, with the rind still attached, by scoring it in 1 inch square sections down to the rind. Cut off a 3 by 3 inch secton for each person. Skewer it on a long fork or stick and hold it over the fire until the bacon starts to cook and sizzle and the rind shrinks and curls up the bacon sections. Is your mouth watering yet? Sprinkle paprika over bacon, eat by cutting off an inch cube with a knife and topping it with chopped sweet onion and hearty rye bread. Serve with cold beer and Schnapps chasers. The taste is wonderful, good on those cold nights around the campfire. This type of bacon can be bought at german or hungarian deli or meat markets. The bacon is firm, not soft. It is cured in a way which permits you to also eat it in thin slices on bread as an appetizer.

-Gina