Slowpix.org

Month: June 2015

  • Balazs Dávid- herbalist

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    Having passing several villages on pebbly roads and lots of beautiful scenery, we arrived at the village of Siklód. Looked at from the top of a nearby church tower, the village looked like houses, which had been spread around haphazardly between hills and deciduous groves. Having arrived, we had to ascend a rather steep and curvy road in order to arrive at the house of Dávid Balazs and his family.

    In fact, we drove so far on more or less bad road because Mr. Balazs has worked as a herbalist in his spare time for many years and he has good results, having cured quite many. He has always been hiking and collecting herbs  in forests, he has read a lot about herbs, he has cured his own kidney problems, he cured his daughter when she was ill with inflammation and he cured his son of asthma by means of herbal teas. When he had cured his son, his friends asked him to make herbal teas for them as well and, gradually, he started thinking about founding a company. Moreover, his grandmother was a herbalist, his grandfather was a healer, using herbal creams, and his mother-in-law was a herbalist such that he didn’t started from scratch.

    He started 4-5 years ago with herbal teas, making combinations of 5-6 types of herbs because the effects cancel each other out if he adds more types. He wasn’t registered the first 2 years, but he got registered the third year after having completed much paperwork and a complex procedure. Now, he is certified and he can sell his products anywhere and his dream is to cure other people with herbs. He has 3 employees for collecting, sorting and mixing, while he does marketing and selling himself. He has a Facebook page, which he finds useful. He’s going to farmer’s markets where he speaks to many people even though he sells little, and he has one free weekend a month. He hasn’t decided if should quit his bank job or not.

    Each mixture of herbs is meant to cure or alleviate a part of the body or a specific disease:

    He also makes herbal creams in order to cure or at least alleviate the following:

    Other products include:

    together with strong essences based on:

    Dávid has not decided if he should expand the product range or not, but he won’t expand the range for now. He’s only collecting herbs from forests in the vicinity of where he lives because a large variety of herbs grow in this area and he’s always aiming for making products of the highest quality.

    Regarding feedback from customers, he was interviewed by a radio station in Hungary. Afterwards, an old man with eye problems called him, and Mr. Balazs sent him herbal tea. He got cured, then he came to Mr. Balazs’ place and bought a lot of herbal tea. He has also got feedback from people with liver diseases and respiratory diseases and it seems like about 1 of 3 are cured or at least get better after 3 months drinking 3 cups of herbal tea daily.

    There are large meadows and deciduous forests around the village of Siklód and we followed Mr. Balazs on a herb-collecting hike. In addition to wearing an apron with lots of pockets, he always had a pair of hand pruners ready to cut some herbs and put them in one of his many pockets. He flitted from one group of herbs to another one, always cutting them carefully and leaving at least half, seemingly never hesitating which herbs he should collect. When we returned to the village, where we had a beer at the only place selling it, then sitting outside we could watch the daily procession of cows and goats returning from grazing a local meadow before going home to their owners in order to be milked.

    Having got home, Mr. Balazs used a special kind of tool in order to cut up the herbs, then laying them on a coarse netting surrounded by a wooden frame. Finally, he inserted the frame into a solar oven, through which hot air would flow and dry the herbs quickly the next morning.

    Next, my guide made a wonderful goulash, which felt like the end of a fantastic holiday.

    If somebody wants to make their own goulash, here is a recipe.

  • Csípán Csaba – distiller

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    Having arrived at the house of Csaba Csípán, the founder, owner and manager of Csípán Pállinka, he willingly showed us his distillery. The building and techniques he is using to make pálinka date back 200 years, but he has combined traditional techniques with up-to-date technology. Inside a small brick building, the distillery seemed to consist of two copper containers, some tubes and a wood-fired oven to an untrained eye, but as always with technical apparatus, it’s a lot more complicated.

    In order to make pálinka, high quality fruit has to be available. Due to its geography and specific micro-climate, this region is most suitable for cultivating fruits. Cultivation of fruits for hundreds of years have given fruits of inimitable flavour and aroma, which make pálinka or fruit brandy from this distillery distinctive.

    Next, the fruit has to be mashed, but any stony seeds have to be removed first. Then, the mashed fruit is allowed to ferment in an environment without oxygen for 10 to 15 days. Finally, the fermented mash is heated to 70 °C and the resulting vapour is made to pass a heat exchanger, which condenses the vapour into liquid. This procedure is repeated for a second distillation where an experienced worker has to be present to taste and smell the product. The first part of the second distilling contains copper, while the alcohol content is decreasing continuously during distilling. In the end, the fruit brandy turns sour and can’t be sold. The alcohol content from the second distilling is about 60% +/- 5%, but Mr. Csípán aims for 52%, which he manages by adding water from a well. He has 11 wells and one of them doesn’t give colour to the fruit brandy. When the alcohol content is acceptable, the fruit brandy is filtered and bottled. The remains from the fruits are transported into the basement and sent to a company, which turns it into fertiliser.

    Mr. Csípán has the required certificates for making fruit brandy, his production is official, but he has to pay 50% tax on everything he produces. He makes a living for his family from the distillery even though the official market is small and the black market is huge, he’s not willing to compromise on quality, he won’t sell to supermarkets, 10 persons are working part-time, he’s able to triple the production, but he wants his company to grow slowly. He sells his products mainly in Szekler land to restaurants, guesthouses and pubs within a radius of about 20 km.

    Three main types of fruit brandy are made at this distillery:

    Combination of 50% cherry and 50% distilled wine. Pour distilled wine on a bed of cherries and leave everything for at least 3 months. The result is brandy on a bed of fruit.

  • Májai Zsigmond – farmer

    Workers are removing unwanted laves from a field of eggplants.

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    Zsigmond Májai runs a farm next to the Nirajul Mic River, a tributary to the Niraj River where he grows vegetables on 4 hectares of fertile land. All the vegetables are grown in soil and he uses manure, which he receives from other farms, as fertiliser. Besides, he uses no pesticides . He uses a manual seed planter made from a bicycle wheel and some mechanical parts in order to obtain a fixed distance between each seed when planting. He also exchanges information with other farmers how to grow vegetables successfully. He has been running this farm for 18 years, but now he’s thinking about starting crop rotation  in order to take better care of the soil. Another description of crop rotation can be found here.

    Tomatoes and beans were cultivated in greenhouses and everything looked tidy and orderly. The tomatoes looked like they would mature soon, but Mr. Májai wasn’t satisfied with growing hybrid ones because they were susceptible to weather changes. Instead, he wanted to grow local varieties again.

    Outside, he was cultivating eggplants, strawberries, raspberries and paprika and the ground around the plants was covered with plastic sheets in order to prevent weeds from growing. All the plants, both inside and outside, were irrigated from the nearby river and in order to conserve water, by means of drip irrigation.

    More information on how to grow strawberries can be found here.

    Some workers living nearby were cutting the lower leaves of the eggplants during our visit.

    Mr. Májai sells tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries direct to markets in small towns, while the rest is sold to the food industry.

  • Madaras Árpád and Péterfi Lajos – farmers

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    The village of Chibed is famous for its onions and during communism, large agricultural cooperatives in Chibed were growing onions, which were delivered to large factories to feed the workers. After the fall of communism, the factories were closed down and since farmers had to work in cooperatives during communism, they started growing their own land instead. He told my guide that a long time ago, farms were so large that farmers could feed many people, but as they got children who inherited their land, their plots got steadily smaller and also spread out. Mr. Madaras has 37 plots of land! After the fall of communism, these tiny plots were given back to their former owners if possible, but all the farmers preferred to work for themselves. However, he led a good life until 2007 when Romania joined the EU and he had to compete with large farms in Western Europe, and whose products were soon imported to Romania. Naturally, he and a lot of other small-scale farmers couldn’t compete on price and many simply gave up. A solution would be to form a cooperative, but they are still unpopular due to many bad memories from forced collectivisation during communism.

    Mr. Madaras has 4 greenhouses, 3 with hybrid tomatoes and one with traditional ones. Since hybrids look better than traditional ones, they are chosen by customers at supermarkets, but he has to buy seeds from plant breeders, making them more expensive than traditional ones. He’s pessimistic, but continues working the land in respect of his father and grandfather.

    During our visit, three young men were working for Mr. Madaras on a small field, one was making rows, a second one was distributing celery plants and a third one was planting them.

    Lajos Péterfi, another farmer from Chibed, although he looked older than Mr Madaras was instead optimistic. He’s growing onions, selling vegetables and walnuts at farmers’ markets, he’s running a flour mill and he’s making pálinka unofficially. He’s versatile and adaptable, necessary characteristics when you are a small-scale producer who have to compete with industrial agriculture.

  • Szász Illyés and Melinda – beekeepers

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    We met Melinda Szász at her family’s house from which she and her husband llyés are making a living from organic beekeeping only. We were invited into their living room where Mr. Szász had made an exquisite bookcase to exhibit their products, ranging from various types of honey where the beehives had been freighted near specific types of plants, creamed honey, honeycomb, propolis, pollen and beeswax figures .

    We got a taste of the following honeys:

    • Acacia or wattle honey from wattle trees near the Danube.
    • Meadow honey from wildflower meadows near Corund  . 
    • Forest honey from honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids.
    • Linden honey from linden or lime trees.

    Each of them had their specific colours, tastes and consistencies and all of them were good.

    Ms. Szász learnt about beekeeping from her mother, who was a zoo-technology engineer, she read about beekeeping and helped her father with beekeeping while she was young, but she didn’t see the beauty of it. Later, she studied at a university under distinguished professors from Cluj-Napoca and Budapest and she made a thesis on beekeeping when she finally saw the beauty of it. Her husband was already doing beekeeping when they met and the Szász family have been doing beekeeping for 20 years, while they have made a living from organic beekeeping for the last 4 years. Their company has 5 full-time employees and 2 part-time workers who work from May to August.

    After having got an introduction to their company and tasted some of their products, we followed Ms. Szász into the garden where there were lots of beehives, 150 in all, some for producing honey and a long row of tiny ones for breeding, The tiny beehives looked like small boxes inside of which were 3-4 frames where one queen bee and a lot of worker bees were living. The queen bee would fly out of the beehive and mate 7-15 times with drones in the air, gather seed for 3 days, then she would re-enter the hive and stay there for the rest of her life. We were also shown a wax queen cup, in which a newly mated queen bee was staying. The beekeepers kept her there in order to estimate the quality and health of her eggs.

    This company also tries to produce 100-150 queen bees  per year and replace the whole population after 4-5 years. Of course, they have to take precautions to avoid in-breeding and breeding with drones from other beekeepers’ beehives. The last one is obtained by ascertaining that other drones are a minimum distance away from where the mating takes place.

    In addition to these beehives, they have 3 more sets of beehives in other places in Romania and all of the bees are Carpathian honey bees, apis melifera carnica.

    Beekeepers also have to protect their bees against a parasite called Varroa destructor and the only chemical they are allowed to use to fight it is oxalic acid in order to keep their certificate for doing organic beekeeping.

    They are selling products derived from bees like:

    In addition, they are also selling various tools for beekeeping like bee smokers  to calm the bees, marker pens for marking queen bees, plastic cages for housing queen bees, protective clothing, beehives, which are made by Mr. Szász from Norway spruce in a workshop next to their house, frames, uncapping forks, extractors for extracting honey, etc. In short, they are selling everything, which beekeepers need.

    It was a great pleasure visiting someone who obviously does so much for beekeeping as Ms. Szász.

    For those who want to know more about bees and how to help them, please have a look at The Ultimate Guide to British Bees: How to Protect Their Declining Population and Protecting Britain’s bees – How to look after them and prevent their decline.

     

  • Ivó Wildlife Park

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    We had to wait for a park warden to let us into the Ivó Wildlife Park, opening the gate for us to enter and closing it such that the animals living in the park would stay inside.

    The park is located at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains among rolling hills and river valleys. We also passed a lake, coniferous and deciduous forests, a brook and meadows, besides old and abandoned timber houses.

    Mr. Albert Andás , the owner and managing director of this park is a hunter, who saw a need for this type of park. He sold a printing business and used the profit from the sale and a grant from the EU to found a company called Honor, which is a wild game and mangalitza  meat processing company, manufacturer and purveyor of premium quality products Next, he bought the land, set up a fence covering an area of about 400 hectares and brought wild animals inside.

    Having entered the park, we were met by a deer doe which preferred to follow us on our whole excursion. We first passed an inner fence, inside which about 10 wild boars were living, because male boars can be dangerous to people. As expected, we could easily observe that they had been digging in the ground for acorns, beech nuts, etc. The other wild animals living inside the outer fence include red, fallow  and roe deer  besides mouflon from Corsica

    We only saw some roe deer passing on a meadow on the other side of a valley during our visit. However, although the animals live inside a fence, they are still wild and, as visitors, we just have to accept that they want to avoid us. Actually, they are free-range animals, which forage for a varied diet of grasses, leaves, shrubs, berries and other vegetation.

    During our walk, we came to a lake where our companion, the deer doe, willingly waded and swam. Our guide told us that deer are good swimmers and that they get relief from bothersome insects when they are swimming.

    9 employees work at the Ivó Wildlife Park, like rangers, game wardens, butchers and a veterinarian.. There is also a butcher’s shop nearby where one female employee is selling products made by the butchers.

    Occasionally bears can be heard outside the fence, sometimes they break it and it takes a long time to find out where it has been broken. 

    About 200 youngsters are born in the park annually, but hunters on seats located some metres above the ground will take out more or less the same number of adults in order to prevent overpopulation.

    When we were about to leave, we passed a small shop at the entrance where visitors could buy handmade objects from horn, etc.

    Afterwards, we went to the butcher’s shop where the selection of meat products looked overwhelming compared to what we can buy at meat desks even in high-end supermarkets in Norway. Having tasted some of the products, I can also confirm that they are excellent and taste delicious. The selection of the butcher’s shop can be viewed here.

    Hunters need to take samples from each animal they have killed and bring them to authorised collection points. All the carcasses have to have a lab certificate before they can be bought by this company and a veterinarian employed by Honor has to inspect it before it can be turned into various meat products. In fact, the only problem with buying from hunters is wild boar meat because of trichinosis. This company buys game like bear, red, fallow and roe deer besides wild boar from hunters, but Mr. Andás told us that the demand is greater than the supply.

    We were also allowed to enter the slaughterhouse where some butchers were making sausages. One of them had almost finished filling up a meat grinder with meat and various other ingredients, which are added to sausages, while the other ones were closing bowels, enclosing the contents of the sausages, with pieces of string. Besides, pieces of meat from game were hanging in a cool room in order to improve and concentrate the flavour of the meat.

    The meat products are also sold to restaurants in Romania and exported to Italy and Hungary, but only in small quantities.

    Those who want to know more about deer hunting, can have a look here.

  • Szekler Fruit

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    The Civitas Foundation ran a regional, community-based economic development plan in the villages of Udvarhely Seat from 2009 to 2011, while it got a grant from Norway grants. The purpose of this initiative was to support farmers and small producers, provide assistance in making their communities more sustainable and provide local livelihoods by taking care of traditional orchards and by making fruit-based products.

    Szekler Fruits is a small company which values the manual work of the Udvarhely region‘s farmers, supports the protection of natural variety and guarantees the quality and variety of fruit-based products. Jams, syrups and juices are made from traditional Szekler fruits and wild fruits based on traditional recipes.

    Local fruit producers can sell their products to the company or let it process them into jams and syrups for a fixed price per volume unit.

    The following products are made at this company:

    Apple juice and jam

    Bilberry jam and syrup

    Elder jam and syrup

    Cherry juice

    Strawberry jam

    Hawthorn jam

    Blackcurrant jam and syrup

    Rose hip jam and syrup

    Blackthorn jam

    Pear juice

    Raspberry jam and syrup

    Sour cherry jam and syrup

    Cornelian cherry jam

    Blackberry jam and syrup

    Plum jam

    Green tomato jam

    The premises looked squeaky clean with modern machinery, like keeping berries whole in a chamber, then turning them into jam by letting them be surrounded by boiling water in an adjacent chamber.

    Of course, there was no activity due to that they start working in August and we arrived in June.

    As shown on this page, a fruit festival is arranged annually in this area where locals sell jams, syrups, juices, dried fruits, etc. There is a competition for making the most delicious plum pie and another one for making the most tasty jam.

    On our way to this company, it was common to see locals harvesting hay between fruit trees in early summer for feeding their animals in winter.

  • Ilonka Rozalia – maker of a traditional Hungarian cake

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    Guse is a traditional cake made by Hungarian-speaking people in Transylvania. Ms. Ilonka had got up at at half past five in the morning in order start making the dough, then let it leaven until our arrival at about 10. In fact, she had prepared about 10 bun-shapes of dough with a diameter of about 15 cm.

    Upon our arrival, she put flour on a long-handled shovel and applied it evenly, next she put the dough on the shovel, flattened it and shaped it flush with the shovel. Next, she applied a mixture of crude cheese, sour cream, vanilla, sugar, lemon peel, eggs on top of the dough, applying it evenly before putting it into the wood-fired oven, let it bake for 5-10 minutes and extracted it with the same shovel. Finally, her daughter put on melted butter and sugar on the cake.

    We were allowed to eat as much as we wanted when the cakes were finished, but we had to stop eating after a short time because the stomach got full after a short time.

    Like many others in this village, the Ilonka family live in a former farm, but now they have only one horse and one cow.

    The town of Marefalva (Satu Mare) is famous for its Szekler gates and a guide from the local tourist office showed us most of them after our visit to the Ilonka family. Besides, we were told about how they were used, what some of the carvings meant, etc.

  • Szász Rózsika and Arpad – farmers

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    Having visited Zita Tofalvi in the morning, later we went to visit Rózsika and Arpad Szász because they also live on the high level plain above the town of Corund. Both of them grew up in this area, but he worked for many years as an electrician in mines before getting a pension. Then, they lived in Corund before buying this farm.

    The farm is located in a beautiful place, surrounded by wildflower meadows and deciduous forests, a neighbour was passing on a horse-drawn cart, songbirds were singing, a cuckoo was calling and no cars were passing. A rural idyll!

    Since they were expecting us, we were served a wide selection of their home-made cheeses and bacon, while we got pancakes with urdă cheese  with mulberry jam as dessert.

    Having eaten, we were free to have a look at the farm where a group of hens, normal ones and Transylvanian ones with naked neck, together with a rooster went around pecking until they got fed cereals by Ms..Szász, who also had to tempt one hen and her chickens inside a coop with tidbits. One single guineafowl, which I was told, was used as an alarm in case birds of prey were approaching, was also roaming freely, but some poultry is taken by foxes or birds of prey anyway.

    Three pigs were also being raised at the farm and they need to weigh about 220 kg when they are slaughtered. That is, they weigh much more than pigs, which are raised commercially, when they are slaughtered. While the pigsty was being cleaned, the pigs were let out one by one and they seemed very happy, eating grass and walking around the courtyard freely.

    The Szász couple had 6 cows, all of which were grazing on a communal meadow, while a cowherd was looking after them, They were milked in the morning, then they were let out and they would walk with cows from nearby farms to a communal meadow and come back in the evening. During our visit, Mr Szász followed them home the last stretch, but when they reached the barn, each cow knew which cubicle to go to. Finally, both husband and wife milked them, while one male calf just had to suckle his mother’s teats. Having finished, he was hardly controllable and he was let out such that he could jump and run as much as he wanted, looking very happy.

    Besides, the cows on this farm go outside twice daily to drink water from a spring in winter, making them in good shape and ready to go grazing in spring.

    Having finished milking the cows, Mr. Szász brought the fresh milk inside the kitchen where it was poured into a container through a filter. Since they got milk twice daily, Ms. Szász had cheese mass in various stages on the way to become mature cheese. She grated cheese mass made the day before and put it in warm salt water, then she formed the grated mass into a clump, which she rolled into a sausage on a bench and tied it into a braid, She formed other parts of the grated mass into a flat piece which she extended, finally turning it a rose, showing us she is a real artist.

    Regarding sharing of work, he does the repetitive task of churning butter, while she does the demanding task of making cheese with more or less complex shapes.

    Some of the cheeses were mixed with oregano, cumin or walnuts and some cheeses were smoked in a small smokehouse next to the farm.

    They also have a wood-fired bakery oven where they bake bread filled with mashed potatoes once a week.

    They had three dogs and three cats, but unfortunately one dog had been taken by wolves the preceding winter.

    Since winters are harsh and long in this area, they have to collect a lot of hay in order to feed their animals throughout winter. They only use cow dung to fertilise their fields because they can’t afford artificial fertilisers.

    They grow potatoes and vegetables in a small garden near the farm, they have pear, apple, walnut and plum trees and they make rose hip and mulberry jam.

    The pigs looked far from weighing 220 kg, but when they do, there will surely be a busy time after having slaughtered them. Then, the whole carcass will be turned into sausages, cold cuts, hams, etc.

    All in all, it seemed like they took very good care of their animals and that that both man and animals were living in harmony.

  • Tofalvi Zita – maker of syrups and jams

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    Going from the town of Corund and ascending a gravel road with more or less dense forest on both sides, we arrived at a high level plain where, fortunately, the air was fresh unlike in Corund where it was very hot. Having passed the small village of Fenyőkút (Fântâna Brazilor) with a school and two churches, we crossed the plain where scattered flocks of cows were grazing , horses were resting and a few coniferous trees were dotting the landscape.  After some time, we arrived at the entrance to a peat bog, which is a glacial refugium  because natural environmental conditions have remained relatively constant or stable during times of great environmental change, such as eras of glacial advance and retreat.  In fact, the peat bog was surrounded by coniferous trees on dry land, but some locals were actively trying to protect the peat bog from drying out. They had also set up a trail around the peat bog such that it was accessible to wheelchair users.

    We visited Zita Tofalvi, a producer of syrups and jams, who was selling her products near the entrance to the peat bog. She collects berries, fruits and spruce shoots from spring to autumn, bringing everything home where she turns her quarry into products she can sell.

    She makes the following types of syrups:

    • Spruce. She boils spruce shoots and add some water, while all the other syrups are obtained cold. That is, she squeezes the fruits and berries without applying heat.
    • Wild raspberry. Since wild bears live in the same area and they like wild raspberries very much, she has to share them with the bears.
    • Blueberry.    
    • Dandelion.
    • Blackcurrant.

    She makes the following types of jams:

    This area is too cold for cultivating peach trees. Instead, she exchanges her products with peach grown by farmers in the lowlands.

    Actually, winters in this area are quite harsh and the locals have to work hard in summer in order to stock up enough to last through winter, which can last as long as 6 months. Besides, selling her products herself means that she can keep the profit to herself.

  • Filtermaiszter Zsolt – fish farmer

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    Having almost passed the village of Mihăileni, we ascended above the village until we arrived at the fish farm of Filtermaiszter Zsolt. Of course, being a fish farm, an artificial lake caught our attention upon arrival. Having walked around the property, there were three more, each one located above the next one. According to the paper Small-scale rainbow trout farming this is a very good way of arranging a fish farm since it saves energy and consequently production costs. We could also see that oblique chutes in each lake brought air into the lakes, another feature recommended in the paper because trout requires a high level of oxygen in the water in which it lives.

    Walking around the lakes, we had to pass meadows full of pretty wildflowers, but the lakes were also surrounded by deciduous trees and a beautiful mountain, on which we had hiked a few days before, was visible in the background. Having passed all the lakes, there was a brook just outside the property and the owner told my guide that he is diverting water from it.. The lakes also contained valves, which could be opened such that water would flow back to the brook in case of flood.

    When he bought the property, it was covered by meadows and he had used a mechanical digger in order to excavate the artificial lakes whose maximum depth is 2.2 m. The maximum depth is very important in hot weather because trout needs cold water in order to survive and it tries to stay as deep as it can to avoid heat.

    Mr Filtermaiszter had built a small hatchery near one of the lakes and he kept fertilised eggs and small fry in separate tanks. After about 3 months, he would transfer the fry to the uppermost lake, while he let the largest fish stay in the lowermost lake and fish of intermediate sizes in the two other lakes. In this way, the youngest and most vulnerable fish would get the cleanest water and big fish would be prevented from eating small ones.

    As regards spawning, in-breeding has to be avoided and Mr Filtermaiszter looks at shape, fins and skin in order to verify that male and female fish, which are in general kept separately, are not related. He also buys fish eggs from other fish farms and he is a member of an association for fish farmers. Moreover, he has been interested in fish since he was 8 years old.

    In the evening, he threw fistfuls of pellets into one lake at a time and we could watch the fish partly jump out of the water in order to catch the feed. Afterwards, he showed us a big house he was building for his guests. In fact, a company had built the frame of the house, while he was doing the interior work. In 2-3, years, the fish farm should be open for tourists who want to fish and prepare their own meals, He also wants to arrange hiking, driving and fishing trips, preparing mutton and pork, etc.

    Mr Filtermaiszter has made his own workplace and is of course his own boss in a region with high unemployment. He’s selling to restaurants and he receives orders from customers. Slaughter of mature fish is done weekly.

    He and his wife kindly served us freshly caught trout with beer and palinka for dinner, cooking the fish on a wood-fired oven. An excellent way of finishing an interesting visit.

    Since the fish farm was located in the countryside, two young men were cutting hay on the property during our visit since dry hay is the prime feed of farm animals in winter in Romania. Actually, a flock of cows were grazing near the brook above the fish farm and we could hear their owners bring them home after sunset.

    For those who want to catch their own trout instead, some advice can be found here.

  • Katona Irén – syrup and jam producer

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    Driving through the village of Bögöz (Mugeni), we had to enter through a typical Szekler gate in order to arrive at Carved Gate B&B. Inside was a nice garden with a big lawn, a portico adjacent to a stone wall and an insulated roof isolating the inside from the strong heat outside. While the B&B of Irén Katona looks unassuming on the outside, it is an oasis on the inside in hot summers.

    Since we were visiting her because of her products, Ms. Katona kindly served us syrup from fresh shoots of spruce, blueberry and elderberry, all of which she had picked herself. Besides, while the bottles were onion-shaped, the labels were custom-made for her products, making them look more personal. Besides picking everything herself, she’s also preparing everything herself in her own kitchen, always aiming for the highest quality and adding as few preservatives as possible. As expected from our first impression, all her syrups were delicious. Besides making syrups, she’s also making jams of blueberry, lingonberry and elderberry, all of which tasted savoury.

    Explaining to us the origin of her products, she told us that her guests wanted something special from the area and then she realised that she could serve them her mother’s fruit syrups, which her guests liked very much. She started producing syrups commercially in 2009 having got a grant from Norway grants. 

    She makes 300 litres of each product yearly and she sells them direct to locals and to customers further away in Romania, Hungary and France. Regarding the latter, a Frenchman from a French travel channel made a programme about her products and guesthouse, then, lots of French tourists started arriving. She also sells her products at farmers’ markets in Budapest and Bucharest.

    Ms Katona and her husband are also active in developing the local community and they arrange a yearly summer camp for children where local kids play basketball with German kids, etc.

  • Târnava Mare Agricultural Cooperative

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    We paid a visit to a dairy that was being run as a cooperative of about 500 small-scale farmers. It is housed in the same building as The Butter Factory, which started operating in 1938, and was run as a cooperative until it was nationalised in 1948. It was privatised after the fall of communism, but the production fell steadily and the dairy was closed down in 2010. The Târnava Mare Agricultural Cooperative was founded in 2011 in order to coordinate production, purchase, processing, marketing and selling of dairy products in this area. Production started in 2013 and the farmers of the cooperative get paid 90% in money and 10% in dairy products, which have been made from the cow’s milk they have sold to the dairy.

    The following products are made at this dairy using traditional recipes:

    We were shown around the dairy by the managing director who told us that the buildings were in need of restoration and they kept one truck as spare parts for the other one.

  • Biró Vencel – farmer

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    We went to visit Vencel Biró, who is raising snails and cultivating vegetables, besides being the father of my guide Robert Biró.

    The snail farm was located on the top of a small hill in a wide, open landscape with seemingly fertile fields.

    Robert’s father worked as a policeman, but got an early retirement. He bought the land for the snail farm after getting retired, but since the limits of his land are not officially verified due to that the state owned everything during communism, he can’t be certain to keep all of his property.

    Since he had been growing small plots of land for many years and nobody else was raising snails with shells, he decided to start a snail farm where he could grow food for the snails at the same time. All the snails raised at this farm have been collected by local people and brought to his farm for pay.

    The farm consists of 4 rectangular fields surrounded by netting fences and the ground of each field is covered by coarse netting in order to prevent the snail from burrowing into the ground. The fields with snails were covered by dense vegetation such that the snails could climb and stay on plants, but lots of snails were residing on the netting walls instead.

    The snails are harvested in autumn just before they start hibernating. It’s time-consuming due to that they may be difficult to find, they have to be alive and the shells have to be cleaned. The snails are mostly exported to Italy, while a small amount is sold in Romania. After harvesting, the vegetation inside the fences have to be removed and seeds are sown in order to prepare the field for a new set of snails.

    Having had a look at the snails, Robert’s father showed us his vegetable fields where he was growing zucchini in order to feed the snails. He had set up a fence around the whole property and he had started growing vines which were growing around the fences. He had also dug a drainage canal around the whole property. In addition, he tried to make new fences by growing walnut trees in rows.

    I was offered to have a taste of his snails, but never having been fond of eating them, I turned the offer down.

  • Farkas gingerbread workshop

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    Gingerbread is a sweet food-product flavored with ginger and typically using honey rather than just sugar. Ginger is a flowering plant whose stalk is widely used as a spice or a folk medicine and, according to the same article, it was brought to Europe in 992 by the Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis. Now, more than 1000 years later, gingerbread is as popular as ever, and we went to visit a family who make gingerbreads for a living. Mr. Gábor Farkas kindly let us in to the workshop where he and his wife Magda make gingerbreads in addition to candies shaped like fish, a local specialty, and lollipops. Actually, in Romania, gingerbread is called turtă dulce and it is commonly covered with a sugar coating.Visiting the Farkas family, it seemed like they had turned sugar coating into an art form as shown here, here, here and here.

    Since the Farkas family have to compete with various big producers of gingerbreads, they didn’t make anything during our visit because they still had lots of gingerbreads to sell. After having visited the workshop, which didn’t contain any machines, and as Mr Farkas told us, they do everything manually, we were allowed into their kitchen where he introduced us to the story of gingerbread in the town where the Farkas family live.

    This town resided in Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries when it was called Szekler Neumarkt. It was famous for its artisans and it was called Little Paris because of its many masters of crafts. Gingerbread used to be made by women working on their own, but in 1906 a master from Timisoara arrived and he introduced decorations to gingerbreads. This led to that the production of gingerbreads increased and a family called Kosa were producing gingerbreads for 60 years. Unfortunately, the female elder of the Kosa family died without passing on the recipe, but another member of the Kosa family had a written recipe such that the Farkas family were able to recover this tradition, which they started in 2003. Mr Farkas told us that they had been experimenting for 2 years, but they were still learning how to improve their products.

    Although they make gingerbread, they first have to make a dough consisting of flour, sugar and water to which they add ginger together with aniseed and brown honey. They have a wide selection of metal moulds into which they press the dough in order to make shapes like hearts, flowers, horsemen, cars, etc. However, Mr Farkas is also able to make new moulds if the need arises. Regarding the sugar coating, it consists of water, sugar and food colours, the last ingredient being used as sparingly as possible. The wife of Mr Farkas is using a piping bag in order to make the decorations.

    Gingerbread is used for celebrations and events like baptisms, weddings, etc. Many songs are related to these activities in Romania.

    The Farkas famiy are members of the Guild of Craftsmen in Transylvania and in 2011 they got a “Szekler Product” license.

    Last but not least, note that Szekler is a German word for Székely, which means Hungarian-speaking people in Transylvania. In the Middle Ages, the Székelys together with the Saxons formed a line of defence against invading Ottoman forces.

    For a history of gingerbread please have a look at this web site.

  • Tóth Katalin – confectioner

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    Katalin Tóth works at home as a confectioner, a work she does out of passion since the pay is low and she has to work long hours. Alternatively, she could work for someone else at an even lower salary. In fact, Ms. Tóth is part of a huge cottage industry of people who create their own jobs in a country with low wages and high unemployment. She receives orders for cakes and sweets for birthdays, weddings, religious feasts, etc.

    She works alone in a tiny kitchen where she’s using her grandmother’s recipes which she knows by heart and she doesn’t need to measure or weigh the ingredients. Upon our arrival, she had already made various cakes which were freely available, and it was only the thought of gaining weight because of eating too much sweet stuff which made me limit myself.

    She had already prepared and baked the dough, which would form the base of the cake she was preparing during our visit. She separated yolk and egg white deftly, mixing the yolk with vegetable oil and stirring the mixture. Having finished stirring, she poured the mixture over the base of the cake. Then, she mixed the egg white with flour and chocolate and used a mix-master to make the mixture uniform. Afterwards, she applied this mixture to another piece of dough which had already been baked. Finally, she would bake both of the cakes in a gas-fired oven. Since we had more visits to do, we didn’t wait for the cakes to be ready.

  • Szabó Béla – chocolate maker

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    The chocolate workshop of Béla Szabó and his wife is located next to their house, which he inherited from his parents Initially, they both worked as waiters during communism, but after the Iron Curtain was broken in 1989, there were no sweets available and there was a demand for chocolate, which could be met by small-scale producers of chocolate. Now, 25 years later, chocolate is readily available from multinational companies, but fortunately some people still prefer chocolates made by hand.

    There was no activity in the workshop during our visit because they had made two prism-shaped chocolates a short time before our arrival.

    When Mr Szabó and his wife start making chocolate, they boil water and sugar for 3 hours on a wood-fired oven. Then, they add cocoa powder, dry milk powder and margarine together with walnuts from Romania. When the chocolate is ready, they pour the it into moulds, having to wait 12 hours to cool down, Finally, they cut it up with a knife and put the pieces in small plastic bags.

    They need to always use the same ingredients in order to keep the same taste, else their customers start complaining. Anyway, the production of chocolate is small and adaptable such that they can modify their product should a need arise.

    Mr Szabó brings his products himself to various small shops where their chocolates are sold.

  • Sárig Attila – farmer

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    Attila Sárig lives in the village where he was born together with his Hungarian wife Reka and their young son Benedec. Like all or almost all houses in the village, their property is not visible from the gravel road passing through the village because it is hidden by high fences and a big gate. The gates were probably meant for letting a horse and cart pass through, but nowadays it could also be someone’s car, which should pass through it. During my stay, it felt like there were as many horse-drawn carts as cars passing outside. The village is surrounded by hills covered by meadows full of wildflowers and deciduous forests, making it ideal for those who want rural settings in a beautiful place.

    Having entered the gate, there is a small house in which the Sárig family have a combined kitchen and dining room for themselves and for their guests. There is also a small house divided in two where one part is the living quarters for the Sárig family, while the other one is the combined bedroom and bathroom for their guests.

    The Sárig family slaughter their own animals and they make almost all their food themselves. Having been their guest for two days, I can attest to their delicious and genuine food – a real culinary pleasure.

    Just outside their property, there is a communal garden where each family have a plot for growing vegetables and both Attila and his wife spent lots of time there tending their vegetables. Moreover, Attila’s parents have a small farm outside the village where they have six cows, 2 of their own, 2 of Attila’s family and 2 of his brother’s family. When we arrived, the cows had been let out by Attila’s parents to go grazing and they had left fresh milk from the cows in a container. Actually, the cows are milked in the morning before they are let out to go grazing, then they return in the evening when they are milked again.

    Attila made a fire and put a pot with the fresh milk above it. When the milk was hot enough, about 35°C, he poured rennet on the milk and waited about 30 minutes in order to let the milk start curdling. Then, he used a knife in order to cut the cheese mass into small parts (dairies use a device called a harp to obtain the same thing) before he started stirring the cheese mass continuously. When he could gradually feel that the cheese grains were becoming more solid, he put a porous cloth into the mass, collecting the cheese grains carefully inside the cloth. He joined the corners of the cloth and lifted it up, put it in a container with an opening. through which the whey could flow and fall down in a bucket. Next, he put the cloth in a large metal ring and compressed the cheese mass in order to let the whey flow out and finally he put some weights on it in order to press out more whey.

    The remaining whey was reheated and he used a utensil to collect two dishes with cheese, the cheesemaker’s soup. – a real, tasty treat. Finally, he extracted the rest of the cheese mass, which is called ricotta because it is heated twice, and poured it into a porous cloth. When everything had been extracted, he hung up the cloth with the ricotta such that the whey could escape.

    Having finished making cheese, Attila used a scythe to cut some nettles which he mixed with a part of the remaining whey and gave it to a sow which lived next to the cheesemaking cottage. The rest was collected in bottles in order to give it to the pig at their house.

    Attila prefers to sell his cheeses to someone he knows because there are so many rules if he sells them at markets and he has to pay for lots of paperwork.

    Attila’s family also grow vegetables at the second farm, but wild animals like deer and wild boar enter the garden. They have set up an electric fence around it, but he also plans to set up a wooden fence.

    Having hiked back to the village via another path, we went to a small meadow where Attila asked me to help him bring some haystacks inside a barn because it started raining. Of course, we had to do it the Romanian way, which consisted of putting two poles below the haystack before carrying it inside. The thick end of the pole had to be inserted below the haystack first and it had to be lifted occasionally in order to create some space around it, then pushed again until it passed below the whole haystack. Although the haystacks looked small, they were surprisingly heavy.

    Attila and his parents have a house in the village where they want to set up an agricultural school. They want to teach everyone how to grow vegetables organically. He thought it was impossible until he went to an agricultural school in Sogn, Norway where he saw that students of all ages really wanted to learn about organic agriculture.

    Attila and some locals arrange a haymaking festival every August and about 20 participants were expected at the festival this year. The guests would be housed in various places in the village and they would mow different kinds of meadows, ranging from lowland ones near the village to highland ones in the mountains.

    For those who want to know more, a journalist from National Geographic has written this article.

  • Molnár Csaba bakery

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    While we were having lunch in Hidegség (Valea Rece), my guide realised that we were close to the bakery of Molnár Csaba. Since he knew him, he called him and he accepted our visit immediately.

    Molnár Csaba was initially running a meat processing company, but due to strict regulations and some minor violations, he closed down the company and founded a bakery instead.

    Upon entering the bakery, the female workers were finishing lunch and preparing to go back to their heavy work. One of their tasks was to mash potatoes in a meat grinder, a light but repetitive task. However, when all the potatoes had been mashed, they had to carry a container full of potatoes to the meat grinder in order to repeat the mashing. They also had to peel the potatoes manually and put the mashed potatoes in the dough.

    During our visit, one of the workers was tending a machine, which was sifting flour, else it would form clumps during preparation of the dough in a kneading machine.

    The bakery had 8 wood-fired ovens, all of which needed to be filled with pieces of bread dough. A group of female workers and one male worker were doing this job.

    When the ovens were hot enough, a long-handled tool was used to take out the embers from the oven, then a mop was pulled over the base of the oven to remove any remaining embers. The dough of each bread had already been prepared and lay in separate bowls. When an oven was ready to be filled, one woman was standing at the opening of the oven. A man held a long-handled shovel on which she poured flour, while at the same time the women took out the dough of the bowls and kneaded each piece of dough expertly, then put it on the shovel. Finally, the first woman poured water on the dough and the man led the shovel into the oven and pulled it back quickly in order to let the dough stay in the oven. This procedure was repeated until the oven was full, then it was repeated seven times more, once for each oven.

    When the breads were taken out of the ovens, they were covered by a black crust, which had to be removed. The female workers used one machine to clean the bottom of the bread and another one for cleaning the top. Besides, they also needed to grate the breads to remove any burnt remains.

    All of the women worked surprisingly hard in a very hot workplace., while the one man seemed to have a lighter workload.

    The bakery is owned by the Molnár family and they sell bread within a radius of 14 km from the bakery