Month: October 2024

Oana – bean to bar chocolate maker

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Insta

We went to visit Oana in the city of Sfântu Gheorghe where we were met by her and her husband, who is running a bike workshop next to her chocolate workshop. While he was cleaning a chocolate tempering machine by melting the remaining chocolate with heat guns, Oana showed me how she makes chocolate.

Chocolate tempering machine

Spots of cocoa butter are visible on the surface of the chocolate if not done correctly, a phenomenon, which is called crystallisation. An interesting video about crystallisation can be watched here. Oana wants the surface to be shiny, smooth and brown, which she obtains by extracting liquid chocolate when it has the correct temperature. She was using an infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the liquid chocolate.

I’ve been to three other chocolate makers in the county of Hargitha in Romania, one in Norway and another one in Spain, but Oana is a the only one who makes chocolate from cocoa beans, called bean to bar and she imports the beans from Peru and Nicaragua. This means that she needs to process the cocoa beans before she can use them to make chocolate.

Quote: Bean to bar chocolate is chocolate that is made from scratch by the same producer, starting from the raw cacao beans and ending with the finished chocolate bars and treats. This process allows the chocolate maker to control every aspect of the chocolate making, such as roasting, grinding, conching, tempering, and moulding. Bean to bar chocolate is often more flavourful, nuanced, and ethical than mass-produced chocolate. It reflects the artistry and craftsmanship of the maker and the quality and origin of the cacao. Unquote.

She roasts the cocoa beans in an oven to develop flavour, kill bacteria and loosen shells, next she’s cracking the shells and blowing them away, leaving the nibs behind. Next, she grinds the nibs into a thick paste known as “cocoa liquor”.

Grating cocoa butter above melted chocolate and mixing them together.

Mixing liquid chocolate with tahini and salt

She melted cocoa butter and poured it into a small tank with liquid chocolate. Next, she poured crushed tahini on top of the mixture, finally she added a little salt. Afterward, she stirred everything together to make a chocolate paste.

Thereafter, Oana inserted a knife in another chocolate bath, put it in a fridge and took it out after some time and found that the liquid chocolate needed to stay longer in the heater. Only for a demo, she poured the chocolate in a mould, scraped off excess liquid chocolate and shook the form to get rid of bubbles. Due to limited time, she would put pistachio in the liquid chocolate later.

Pouring liquid chocolate in a form and turning it upside down

Chocolate bars on pistachio with and without packaging

I got to taste the chocolate with pistachio, and it was delicious.

Oana also showed me how she folds paper around her chocolates, and she made it seem easy.

Folding paper around a chocolate bar

Hot chocolate and ceremonial cocoa

Her company is called Kokowa and I asked her if it was her last name. Instead, it’s a pun on cocoa and Wanna, her name in Romanian.

In addition to being an excellent chocolate maker, she’s also good at punning. She’s also producing various types of peanut butter as shown below, they are called peanutter and pawnutter where the last one is peanut butter for dogs. In addition, she’s selling hazel butter as hazelnutter, almond butter as almonutter, cashewbutter, caju in Romanian, as cajunutter.

Peanut butter collection

The Krausz chocolate company is located some distance from this one.

12/10/2024
Norbert and Tímea – poultry farmers

Place: Csíkszentdomokos or Sândominic

Several times when we went to visit someone, I thought that we had arrived at the wrong place. Having arrived in a village and turned left onto a grassy cul-de-sac, I thought that my driver had made a mistake for a change. Instead, having called someone in Hungarian, he reversed his car and parked it on the opposite road. Next, we walked to where we had just been and entered a gate where a young couple were waiting for us. They were Norbert and Tímea, a married couple in their 30s and their young daughter.

Their house and the chicken farm were located next to each other, and both were fenced in to prevent the hens from running away and hindering foxes from entering the courtyard. The house and the surrounding property originally belonged to Nobert’s parents, and he had inherited it.

They had 5 goats, but they sold them because a male goat was aggressive when Tímea was pregnant, and she was afraid of getting hurt.

They stayed 7 years in the UK, working in hotels as cleaners in Brighton, learning the language and having a good time although they weren’t satisfied with the food they were eating. Both prefer a slow life and not earning a lot of money, meaning that they went back to where they came from, that is to the farm where Norbert grew up.

They don’t throw away food, they want to know where their food comes from, and they buy honey from local beekeepers. They have planted apple trees, which give shade to the chickens, and they also eat the fallen apples. They make their own bread, and they receive leftovers from some restaurants, but they aren’t allowed to do dumpster diving. The parents of Tímea have pigs, from which they can get meat, they buy milk from one of their neighbours.

They started raising chickens as a hobby, then they increased the number of chickens to 400, while now they have about 250. They have been raising chickens for 4 years and they are still learning how to do it. They can’t get advice on raising more than 200 chickens even though they behave very differently from 20. They buy 100 chickens at a time, costing about 1000 euros, but they can’t see which sex they have upon arrival at their farm. Anyway, the male ones are slaughtered and eaten when they are recognized. In fact, Tímea and Norbert kindly invited us into their house where they served us lunch consisting of soup made from the meat of some of their male chickens.

Foxes are trying to attack the chickens and sometimes they kill several at a time. Their three dogs stay with the chickens and that’s why they don’t have traps for the foxes. In addition, they don’t hunt.

Norbert works as an electrician at Csíki Sör brewery , but he doesn’t drink beer, he’s very occupied with fixing the machines, though. Tímea stays home with their daughter.

In addition to cereals, they only give the chickens vitamin D and calcium. A young female veterinarian is very helpful even though she knows very little about chickens, and she can identify what they need. The main diet of the chickens is cereals.

The hens may peck each other, if they see blood, they will keep on pecking. At dusk, everyone goes inside the small house. Next, they close the door to keep foxes outside. They stay inside at night on wooden racks, some of them stay in a corner of the house. The chickens produce about 1000 eggs a week. They have adjacent houses with straw on the floor where the chickens lay eggs and their owners pick the eggs twice a day. They have a separate house for the youngest chickens, that is up to 1 month.

In winter, they give the chickens hot water every 2 hours, while in summer they can drink from tubes with holes.

After lunch, we went to their egg house a few minutes’ walk from their house. It was located next to the food shop.

The egg house was called Szapona, which was a bad nickname of Norbert’s father. The egg house has a fridge with max 10°C and people can pay with cash. The egg house is monitored with 2 cameras. Of course, they can’t compete with commercial chicken farmers and the egg prices of this couple are somewhat higher than the shop prices. Some customers pay too little or too much, but, in general, it’s averaged out over time
Some people just want eggs, and they don’t care about where the eggs come from.

There is a great demand for eggs at Christmas and Easter.

The price of chicken feed has risen substantially after Covid, and they have been thinking about giving up raising chickens, but they keep on doing it. In fact, Norbert wants to be a full-time farmer and both want to raise rabbits for meat production.

They have Indian ducks for fun, and they eat snails, while their eggs and meat are inedible.

11/10/2024
Lóránt Farkas – baker

Place: Csíkjenőfalva or Ineu

Having gone to the village of Csíkjenőfalva or Ineu, we entered a gate to the garden of Lóránt Farkas where we passed his house, various trees, a well, free-ranging hens, and lots of firewood for his oven. Next, we entered his workshop where he was busy baking bread. In fact, he starts making bread early in the morning, and he had already completed kneading pieces of dough and put them in baskets for leavening.
He’s a baker and a cook, but he also does other types of work. During our visit, he was making sourdough breads for friends and family, about 15 in all. In fact, he‘s using the same sourdough as his grandmother started 80 years ago.

2 millers, one 14 years old and one 85 years old in the village, are providing him with flour, while local farms provide the cereals.

He told my guide that he makes spice mixes from herbs in the mountains. In addition, he had hung up bundles of herbs on the wall of his workshop.

He’s using 7 types of flour:
⦁ wheat
⦁ rye
⦁ millet
⦁ semolina
⦁ buckwheat
⦁ walnut
⦁ Graham

In addition, he’s using salt from the town of Corund.

He thinks factory bread is not good.

Having entered his workshop, we could watch him making bread manually, kneading the dough, applying flour to the dough, weighing the correct amount of dough and putting it in baskets.

He was using a wood-fired oven made of clay. Upon arrival, he had heated the oven, and he was busy kneading pieces of dough, weighing them with an old-school weight, cutting off excess dough and putting the required amount of dough in each basket. Interestingly, he was using a mortar and pestle with stones as a counterweight to the dough, using an old-school weight.

When he baked all the bread, he emptied the oven of ash, next he put some boards in the oven and fired them up.

He bakes bread 3 times a week, and he ferments vegetables and fruits.

He delivers the bread to friends and family, and payment is done by bartering like palinka, cold cuts, etc., with no money exchange.

He was raising ostriches in the past: he got 4 horses, 2 goats and 2 pigs for one ostrich chicken.

Near one of the walls of his workshop, there was a wooden handle leaning on a shelf filled with lots of glass jars. He used the handle to put pieces of dough in the oven and take them out when they were ready.

He laid the bread on a table and put it in baskets when they had cooled down.

When we were ready to leave, he kindly gave us two breads.

11/10/2024
Grădina cu Struti Ostrich Garden

Web site
Place: town of Întorsura Buzăului, Covasna County

Mr Bogdan Platon started the ostrich farm 5 years ago. In the beginning, he was interested in breeding ostriches, but he didn’t know anything about them. He bought some ostriches from other farmers, but it was very difficult in the beginning.

When an ostrich lays an egg, he must steal it because the ostriches don’t take care of the eggs when they live in enclosures. However, the males are very protective and fast, but he has found a way of taking them. The eggs weigh about 1.7 kg. Next, he puts the egg in an incubator such that the egg is stored at the same temperature as the mother ostrich would have provided. After hatching, he keeps the chicken together with the other chickens. He told us that the first 3 months of the chicken’s life is very critical, and mortality may be high. All the chickens were khaki brown with lots of dark brown spots. In the wild, this is useful for hiding them against predators.

As they grow older, they are released into the enclosures. There, two females and a male share space and the owner lets the male make both females pregnant.

When the ostriches are ready for slaughter, he must isolate the selected ostrich in a corner of the enclosure and make it enter a trailer. Next, he drives to a slaughterhouse where a slaughterer slaughters the animal and divides up the meat. He sells the meat and the eggs to anyone who wants to buy it.

There are no veterinarians he can call if the ostriches are ill.

The ostriches are very curious, and they follow what he or anyone else is doing. He let an ostrich bite his hand, but he told us that they don’t bite hard. Instead, they have very strong legs, and we could see that they looked powerful. Besides, their feet looked powerful.

Sometimes, males in adjacent enclosures may start fighting and they may destroy the fence separating them.

Some of the enclosures had a rudimentary roof, protecting the ostriches against rain and snow.

A trough at the base of the fences was filled with cereals which the ostriches were eating when they wanted.

They stay outside all year, and they don’t mind cold weather like -25°C. He showed us a photo of one of their faces on an ice-cold winter day, and its hair was pointing in all directions.

Lots of enclosures were located next to each other and each one had a grass cover.

There were tables with parasols located along the long edge of the enclosures where guests could be served. We were served a delicious meal consisting of soup with ostrich bones, ostrich meat with polenta and a dessert.

10/10/2024
Farmhouse dairy Putnoky-Csicsó Sajtok

Owner: Putnoky-Csicsó Barna
Place: Nyújtód/Lunga

We went to a farmhouse dairy in the village of Nyújtód/Lunga. From the outside, it looked like we had come to a bungalow with a second house, but once we entered the second one, we could see that we had entered a small dairy. It had a rather large stainless-steel tank and another one in copper where Mr. Putnoky-Csicsó Barna was stirring freshly milked cow’s milk.

They have 15 Tyrolean grey cows next to their house.

They make dairy products like
cheese with cumin
cheese with mushrooms
mozzarella with cow’s milk
ricotta cheese
smoked cheese
yogurt
cheese rolls called sajttekercs. A recipe in Hungarian can be found here.
cheese with blackcurrant homemade wine

The last one was not made this year because the summer was too dry.

To make mozzarella cheese, they lay cheese in lukewarm water, knead it, take out pieces and roll them into spheres. Next, they must stay in salt water for 2 weeks.

He let us taste the mozzarella cheese, which was very good. An article about how mozzarella is made at an Italian farm is described here.

During our visit, he was working hard to make cheese because he would sell it at a market on Saturday.
He told my guide that cheese should be served at room temperature and not like I think many people do: eat it straight from the fridge.

There was a storeroom in the basement and an adjacent room.

The cheeses are stored in containers filled with brine, staying there for 3-4 hours per kg. Thus, a heavy cheese must stay longer in brine than a light one.

Next, the cheeses are stored in a cool room on wooden shelves, while turning them upside down daily to expel whey and brushing them with salt water to prevent mould for 2 weeks. Thereafter, the same procedure is repeated every second day for 3 months.

Barna had a tool which he can use to extract a sample of a maturing cheese, smell and taste the sample and then reseal the cheese. He’s also knocking on the cheese, listening to the resulting sound. Interestingly, bakers at a bakery in Sardinia are knocking on their sourdough breads to listen if they have the right consistency.

Occasionally, Barna put a perforated bowl into the milk in the copper container, next he used another bowl to scoop up whey, which had been filtered by the sieve. Finally, he emptied the bowl in a stainless-steel container. Later, he would reheat the whey to make ricotta cheese. That is, the whey is heated twice, and the remaining curd is extracted and used to make the ricotta.

He also filled a glass with whey, and he gave each of us a small cup of it. He emptied the glass, and he told my guide that it was very healthy, and it contains lots of proteins.

He occasionally stirred the milk in the copper container with a harp and gradually small aggregates, called curd, started appearing on the surface. To separate curd and whey, he transferred the whey to another tank.

He holds free courses for those who want to learn about cheesemaking.

He showed us a round shape on which he put a porous cloth. When the curd was ready, he would put it on the cloth which would filter out the whey. In addition, it would give the surface of the cheese an uneven surface.

In 2012, he went to a 6-month course with Hungarian cheesemakers. After 5-6 years of making cheese, he went to Switzerland where he met a group of Swiss cheesemakers, one of whom had been doing it for 40 years. They taught him lots of details he didn’t know about.

He holds events about cheese for kindergartens and schools and he lets kids come to the dairy where they can make strange shapes of the cheese.

He said you can leave whey for 2-3 months; it will turn sour and it’s good for the veins.

10/10/2024
King oyster mushrooms growing company

Place: Csíkbánkfalva/Bancu

Having arrived a series of large buildings, we were met by a middle-aged man who led us inside one of the buildings where we were joined by his son, Péter Előd. He’s a young man, around 30 years old and he’s the main mushroom grower at this company.

The mushrooms are called King Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus Ostreatus) because of its shape. In fact, they started with growing the cultivated mushroom, next they changed to cultivating winter and summer oyster mushroom . They are growing on dead trees in shady, cool and humid places with little carbon dioxide in the wild, and to grow them inside a building, it’s necessary to imitate the conditions of their natural habitats.

Péter’s father does administration, but he’s also helps with the growing. Other employees also helps with the production of the mushrooms, packing, etc.

We were shown four halls full of racks filled with prism-shaped plastic blocks with mushrooms growing out from their surfaces, and we were told that they buy them from a company in Hungary. The substrate on which the mushrooms grow is prepared with, amongst other things, hay and corncobs. After having been pasteurized, mycelium (the vegetative part of a mushroom) is injected into the substrate. Afterwards the substrate is inserted into bags of polyethylene by means of a machine and the bags are perforated with thumb-sized holes through which the mushrooms can pass when they are growing, resulting in a prism-shaped block weighing about 25 kg.

The blocks are transported to the village of Csíkbánkfalva/Bancu where Péter and the other employees put them inside any of the large buildings where they are protected from the sun and maintained at a constant temperature and humidity by means of large fans which draw out hot air. At the same time air passes a panel filled with cold water which cools the building and increases the humidity at the same time. In case of cold weather, the air passes warm water instead such that it is heated.

After some time, the blocks must be replaced, and they are used as compost.

Production of these mushrooms can’t be automated. Both Péter and the other employees live near the production halls, and they can control the state of the mushrooms at any time. This company has an app which can control humidity and temperature inside the production halls. In fact, Péter used his phone to turn on and off drizzle inside the hall.

Some small-scale producers come to this company seeking help. They tell them that they must control the mushrooms manually, not just trust the measuring instruments. They also tell them that cultivated mushroom production can be automated, but not production of king oyster mushrooms.

Racks with blocks containing mushrooms

Some companies make the mushrooms grow faster by increasing the level of carbon dioxide, giving less taste and more soggy consistency, but at this company, they are only allowed to grow slowly, to give more taste.

I have also visited a king oyster mushroom producer in Sardinia.

10/10/2024
lu’Mazăre farm

When we arrived at the lu’Mazăre farm, we were welcomed warmly by the friendly couple Mazăre Gheorge and Ana. Having showed us a duck pond where there was watermill in the past, we were invited inside their kitchen. Both being very hospitable and agreeable, we were served coffee, tea, bread, smoked cheese, cheese with cumin, cold cuts, cakes, donkey milk and palinka.

Besides, their daughter-in-law and her son were also present, while her husband were working as an administrator for a company. He also does all the paperwork for the farm and when Mazăre Gheorge and Ana retires, he will go on running the farm.

They have a cattle farm, but they also have donkeys, sheep, pigs and various kinds of poultry (chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, etc.) They sell both cow and donkey milk to a local milk processing company, but they also make all kinds of milk products.

The farm was in a valley, and it was surrounded by rolling hills covered by forests. Mr Mazăre had always tried to expand the area of the farm, while his neighbours instead spent money on expanding their houses.

When we went outside, we could see some ducks and geese wandering around the farm. Next, Mr Mazăre made a young donkey rise so that his wife could feed him cereals. Next, we entered the barn where the pigs were residing in two enclosures, a group of young pigs in one of them and a sow with her piglets in the other one. The sow was let out of the barn and allowed to walk of the meadows next to the farm. We walked around the meadows where we could see some grazing cows and sheep. At the same time, we could hear a donkey braying.

The owners led us to the donkey which was the mother of the young donkey which Ana had fed. Now, she started milking the donkey by hand. She put a bucket with cereals on the ground and the donkey could eat while she was being milked. In fact, it seemed like it didn’t affect her at all. She just accepted what was happening to her.

We could see some geese and ducks enter a pond where they were swimming. Unfortunately, they left the pond when we were approaching.

We were told that the dairies pay a higher price for donkey milk than cow milk, and the cows are milked by machine.

In addition to the farm in the valley, Mr Mazăre had bought meadows on the hills surrounding the farm. We went by car to a farm; next we walked on meadows from which we could see his cows on other meadows. Mr Mazăre has brought an aggregate and a milking machine up to the cows and he or his wife are milking them by machine where they are.

Summer 2024 was hot and dry, and they also had to bring feed and water to the cows. There are sources on the hills, but they were mostly dry during the summer. Anyway, he led us to a spring from which fresh water was flowing.

To prevent bears from hurting the cows, they are surrounded by electric fences.

When Mr Mazăre was a boy, he had to look after the cows, walking up the hills to the cows. Besides, people were living on the hills to avoid flooding, but they gradually moved down to the valley.

09/10/2024
Papné Manufactory – herbalists

Web site

Insta

Driving in the countryside on gravel roads and finally on a muddy one, we arrived at the property of the Szabó family.

We were met by Ms. Szabó Adél-Júlia, who was a very agreeable woman. She was taught about herbs from a young age by her grandmother and her mother and her husband also learned about herbs from an early age.
The company is run by Ms. Szabó Adél-Júlia and her husband, who work as a minister in a unitarian church and as a manager, respectively. In their spare time, they spend some of it growing and collecting herbs, drying them in the attic on hot summer days and using electrical dehumidifiers on cooler ones.

A mixture of dry herbs

First, we went to a small house where we were shown their dehumidifiers and their storeroom. All the herbs were stored in transparent plastic boxes. They had started storing them in cardboard boxes, but the dried herbs extracted humidity from the air and after some time, mold appeared. Then, they had to throw away the whole harvest and turn to plastic instead.

Ms. Szabó Adél-Júlia opened each box and helpfully picked up some of the herbs from each one.

The unitarian church and the old oak tree

After having showed some of the contents of each box, we followed her outside where we could see a huge 600-year-old oak tree located between the church and their house, while a tower was next to the church.

Next, we crossed a cemetery before arriving at their field of herbs, where the field had been covered by canvas through which rows of holes had been perforated. An herb was growing in each hole, as expected. Some of the herbs were being grown without a canvas and they also were growing some currant bushes. They also go outside the property to pick herbs in the nearby forest.

She teaches kids about herbs for free.

They are producing herbal and fruit trees with the following ingredients:
⦁ spearmint
⦁ oregano
⦁ rose petals
⦁ lavender
⦁ lemon balm
⦁ stinging nettle
⦁ dog rose
⦁ chamomile
⦁ horse mint
⦁ elderberry flower
⦁ acacia flower
⦁ marigold
⦁ yarrow
⦁ eastern purple coneflower
⦁ stinging nettle
⦁ walnut leaf
⦁ isop
⦁ horse mint
⦁ spruce tips
⦁ monarda didyma
⦁ cowslip
⦁ raspberry
⦁ blueberry
⦁ apple
⦁ dog rose fruit
⦁ wild cherry
⦁ blackcurrant, white currant, and redcurrant

The teas are sold in Romania and Hungary.

I have also visited the herbalists Halasagi Csibi and Balazs Dávid .

08/10/2024
Mézeskalács Mühely gingerbread workshop

Having arrived at the workshop of the Szanto family, we were met by Mr. Szanto József, whose family has been making gingerbread since 1880. While he went inside the house to change to traditional Szekler clothes, we could have a look at the small shop on the outside of the house. Various gingerbread figures were on display together with some shapes for shaping the dough. There were also some tables and chairs where their customers could enjoy the taste of their gingerbread.

Next, we were led into the workshop where a large wood-fired oven took up nearly half the space of the workshop.

To add taste to the gingerbread, they use spices like cinnamon, anis, clove, etc. They are grinding the spices manually.

They make the dough in a trough using fine wheat flour, mix it with honey, let it leaven one day, next, they flatten it with a huge roller. They had their own flourmill in the past, but not anymore. Nowadays, they buy flour from a miller in the town of Miercurea Ciuc.

Some time before the dough is ready, they fire up wood in the oven, and when they are turned into embers, they turn them to the left and the gingerbreads to the right, which stay there for 7-10 minutes. After about an hour, they must reheat the oven.

The next day, they add royal icing, consisting of egg white, sugar and food colours. Anyway, they use one colour only a day to avoid colour mixing.

A legend about gingerbread with a mirror: a boy and a girl go to a market, he buys gingerbread with a mirror, if she checks herself in the mirror, she likes him, her mother takes the gingerbread and gives it to the couple when they get married.

Mr. Szanto József decorated several gingerbreads with royal icing during our visit, and he even let me try it. As usual, even if an artisan makes what they are doing seem easy, it requires some practise.

I and another guide visited another gingerbread workshop some years ago. There, the owner told us about the history of gingerbread, which may be worth reading.

08/10/2024
Attl Robert – beermaker

Place: Sfante Gheorge

We went to visit a young man called Robert Attl, who, together with a friend, had started brewing beer in a garage when Covid started in 2020.

They had bought a complete set for brewing their own beer together with a temperature controller and they started making various types of beer. Upon completion of a batch, he gave samples of beer to friends and family. Since they liked it, he went on making many types of beer before he settled on New England IPA and the taste is governed by 5 types of American hops. In addition to hops, he also buys malt and beer yeast.

When he wants to make beer, he starts by crushing the malt in a mill, then filling a tank with the crushed malt and water. This mixture is heated to about 72°C for a certain time, then he separates the malt, which is called mash, and the water, which is called wort. He boils the wort for some time, then he puts a cage with the hops in the wort. Next, he cools the wort and he adds beer yeast to the malt. Finally, he stores the mixture of wort and yeast for a period during which the sugar in the wort will be turned into alcohol, making beer. Next, he filters out the yeast and bottles the beer.

Having seen his small home brewery, we went to a restaurant called GADO whose name is composed of the initials of 2 ladies and 2 gentlemen. GADO restaurant has its own magazine, the GADO times, where each of them is drawn as a human with an animal’s head. They are the following characters:
Greta with a cat’s head
Alfonz with a boar’s head
Dalma with a mouse’s head
Orlando with a deer’s head

Having read an issue of the GADO times, I have realized that the GADO people have a lot in common with the Slow Food philosophy of good, clean and fair. They are, as far as possible, buying foods and drinks from local producers and they gather honey, berries, vegetables, herbs, fruits and water from nearby sources.

The reason for going to this restaurant was that Robert had started working there. He started hosting beer tastings at the restaurant with 15 participants in the beginning, but now about 45 people attend his tastings.
He has learnt about the history of beer, beer chemistry, got to know and made friends with a lots beer lovers.

His beer is called Attl Roblipa where Attl is his last name and Roblipa is a pun on Robert and IPA. His New England IPA has a taste of hops from passion fruit, elderflower, grapefruit, mango and and one more plant. It’s a cloudy beer meaning that it’s hardly transparent. It’s produced at the Mustata de Bere brewery in the city of Brasov.

Some photos of his beer can be found here.

I was kindly invited for a free Roblipa by Robert, and I can confirm that the beer was very tasty. I have also tried a few of their dishes, all of them delicious.

As a measure of the good quality of his beer, his father didn’t drink beer before Robert started brewing beer. Now, he drinks all types of beer, Roblipa and anything else.

07/10/2024
Kovács Mihály -Pig farmer

Web site

We met Mr. Kovács at a parking space because the road from there to his farm was only passable for a 4WD. Having entered his car, he drove us up a hillside, sometimes feeling that we were moving more sideways than straight ahead. Having arrived at his farm, we could see a haphazard collection of fences, enclosures, buildings, a silo where a man was working and lots of mud. Fortunately, he gave me some simple plastic covers for my shoes, else I couldn’t have entered his farm.

Mr. Kovács has one assistant, a man who has grown up on a farm and is used to handling animals.

Mr. Kovács has about 350 pigs and 500-600 poultry consisting of hens, chickens, guinea fowls, geese and pheasants. He was raising mangalitsa pigs as a hobby for 15 years, then it turned into a full-time job since he likes working with animals and being in nature.

He’s running an organic farm cultivating organic cereals for pigs and he got an official license in 2021. There are only 3 certified breeders in Romania since there are very strict requirements for pig farmers, and he had to build a wall down to solid ground around his farm.

When he wanted to start his farm, people from the nearby village had made an illegal garbage dump which had to be cleared first, and he had to remove 50 trucks of garbage. Next, he hired a company to find water which was located at 89 m depth.

All the pigs are living inside a pen with an electric fence to keep them inside and bears outside. They must be inside the enclosure because they can be dangerous to people. Besides, bears can attack the pigs. They are free to walk where they want inside the enclosure, parts of it being turned into muddy fields by the pigs.

The piglets were kept for themselves in a shed.

There is a 180-year bloodline of the mangalitsa pigs, no artificial insemination is done, instead letting the pigs breed by themselves. The farmer shouted for the pigs to arrive, but only the small ones came, while the big ones were satisfied with eating acorns somewhere else.

In hot summers, the pigs prefer to stay in mud baths.

A meat processing unit, where mostly mangalitsa pigs and game meat is used to make cold cuts, is located in the city of Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfântu Gheorghe a short distance away.

Some male pigs are castrated when they are 2-3 months old, and they will be slaughtered when they are 24-28 months old, while the rest are used for breeding.

Some hens and other poultry were inside fences, while a group of geese were wandering aimlessly wherever they wanted.

I have visited another man, Mr. Sándor Huba , who is also raising mangalitsa pigs.

07/10/2024
Deák Mihály – beekeeper

When we were approaching Mr. Deák’s farm, more and more trailers and other industrial hardware started appearing. Upon arrival, I thought we had come to the wrong place, but after a phone call, Mr. Deák invited us into his workshop.

There, he had set up a table with his honeys, some bread and some refreshments. Next, we got to taste all his honeys, each having a specific taste and consistency. He seemed to be hospitable, and the atmosphere was relaxed.

He started beekeeping as a hobby, he spent 5-6 years learning how to do beekeeping, 10-15 years to become professional, and he has about 170 beehives.

He is making gradual investments, and he gets some support from the EU. In addition, he has a loan from a bank.

His bees produce honey from:
⦁ forest fruits
⦁ acacia
⦁ linden
⦁ spring flowers
⦁ rapeseed

He has bought a machine for extracting honey and he’s able to extract honey for other beekeepers too.
In this area, there are herbs in the fields and farmers let out their cows which disperse seeds. In general, there are few flowers in this area.

Before rapeseed was only grown in southern Romania, but it has spread northwards due to global heating. Winters are getting milder and summers hotter. There was more rain in the past, which was bad for honey production.

There are acacia forests near the Danube delta, and he follows the flowering of the acacia trees from the Danube delta northwards in the spring, extending the season about 3 weeks.

He’s guessing where it’s flowering the most and he’s moving the honeybees at night because they must not be overheated. If they get nervous, they move more and produce more heat. In addition, honeybees travel only short distances to find flowers.

He’s only selling honey products to consumers, and he has returning customers.

He’s the President of the Covasna County Beekeepers’ Association.
Quote: “The aim of Nectaria is to subject commercial producers and supermarket honeys of natural origin to quality control and professional evaluation, to appoint the Excellent Szekler Honey of the Year after organoleptic judging and top jury, and to reward honey producers in Szeklerland with prizes, medals and diplomas,” the organizers announced last year. At the same time, they support honey producers and promote their products, introduce beekeeping traditions and draw attention to the unique flavors inherent in the honeys of Szeklerland.

Regarding what this year has been like for honey producers, Mihály Deák said that it is impossible to generalize, it matters a lot whether with a little luck the beekeeper manages to be in the right place at the right time. All that can be said is that the hopes attached to acacia blooms could not be materialized when they were rolled out, but on average this year was slightly better than last year. Unquote. Source.

His son is studying mechanical engineering, father and son have a workshop where they build what their customers want in metal. Small things are built inside, while big ones are built outside. He can make things like a fruit press, tanks for farmers, etc., and he designs the structures by hand on paper. He works part-time as an administrator at a driving school and his son assists him with beekeeping.

A new building for 5 beekeepers will be finished next year, and they will sell honey together.

There are lots of hobby beekeepers, but the number of beekeepers is decreasing.

The price of honey can’t follow inflation because people won’t buy it, and the EU imports honey of poor quality from some other countries.

07/10/2024