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 downChocolate 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 barHot 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Leaving the guesthouse, I went with my guide and Mr. Albert north of Mircurea Ciuc for some distance, then we turned left, driving on a gravel road towards the area of Madaras. First, we passed fields and meadows, then we gradually entered a deciduous forest. While driving, Mr Albert told my guide that Filtermaiszter Zsolt started a fish farm in this area, but he sold it and moved to his present place. Besides, there were several others who had tried to make fish farms in this area, but they had given up.
Finally, we arrived at the property of his father-in-law where there was a wooden cabin, an outdoor eating place and a fish pond, which had been excavated by Mr. Albert’s father-in-law.
The bottom of pond was covered by a tarpaulin where the surrounding area was on the same level or lower than the pond.
Next to the property, a small river was passing. In order to replenish the water in the pond, a tube was feeding water from the creek to the pond. Mr Albert, totally unfazed by the cold running water, removed some stones below which there was a wooden shield.
Below, there was a perforated metal plate above a concrete tube. Inside the concrete tube, but invisible to us, the tube connecting the the creek and the pond was residing. There was another invisible tube connecting the fish pond to a pond on the outside of the property. In this way, fresh water was passing through the fish pond.
Another requirement for fish to survive is air. In the beginning, water was passing from the tube, falling into the pond in one place only. Mr. Albert noticed that the fish was gasping for air where water was entering the pond. Then, he understood that there was too little air in the pond and he constructed a setup such that water was falling continuously into the pond in three places instead of one. In this way, the flowing water will bring fresh air into the pond at the same time.
In order to protect the pond against predators, it was surrounded by a fence to prevent mink from entering. In addition, blue clotheslines were set up above the pond and a net was stretched out just above the surface of the pond to prevent birds like herons from taking the fish.
The filter in the creek with the intake clogs easily and the same happens with another filter located in the tube above the fish pond. There is also a filter where water is leaving the pond in case of a higher water level on the outside.
The fish are sensitive to environmental changes and the fish farmer has to be attentive.
When it’s raining a lot, silt will appear in the gills of the fish.
If the fish is afraid, it secretes a liquid which makes it slippery.
If the fish don’t escape when someone arrives, they are probably ill. Then, he can close both intakes and where the water is flowing out of the pond. Next, he can apply a medicine for about 2 hours. Afterwards, he can let water enter and exit again, but he has to wait for 2 months before he can slaughter the fish.
Mr. Albert buys rainbow trout spawn from Mr. Filtermaiszter in the spring and he slaughters them in the autumn.
Once, he set up an advert about selling fish, but the response was too high. He pulled the ad and asked people to go to Mr. Filtermaiszter instead.
He only produces fish for his family and some friends, while others are advised to go to Mr. Filtermaiszter.
Mr. Albert uses a dog feeder to feed the fish at certain times, which the fish like.
However, he wants to install a fish feeder which spreads the feed, else the most greedy fish take almost all of it. Besides, he wants to install a LED light, which will light a small part of the pond and attract insects, which the fish can eat.
He threw fistfuls of pellets into the lake and we could watch the fish partly jump out of the water in order to catch the feed.
There are 650 rainbow trout in the pond in autumn and 1200 in summer, but he’s certain he can have 3000.
He was using a net to haul up fish and when he hauled up enough for us, he finished off all of them, then he cleaned and grilled them. Finally, we had a delicious meal in the crisp autumn air.
In fact, he prefers to keep the fish salted for 24 hours to bring out the taste, but it wasn’t possible for us because I was going home the next day.
He needed to drain the pond because it freezes in winter. The next day, he would drain it, slaughter all the fish and put it in a freezer.
We met the owner, Mr. István Szabó, of Kázmér brewery where he lives with his family. He invited us for tasting his Vienna lager in the garden and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by its rich taste. I almost never drink lager because it’s become a drink, which tastes almost the same everywhere.
Vienna lager was developed by Anton Dreher in Vienna in the 1830s, combining the crispness of lager with the paler hues of the English ale by adding roasted malt in the mash of lager.
The brewery is named after his rooster Kázmér, which lives in the chicken coop in the garden with one young rooster and many hens. He’s the boss of the chicken coop, at least for now.
While we were enjoying his beer, he told us about how he ended up with his own brewery. He studied electronics and after graduation, he worked as an electrical engineer. His first job was to work in automation for a local brewery and he was worked with automating both malting and a pastueriser.
He worked with an Austrian company from 1992 to 2004 and it was there that he learnt how to make beer. Next, he worked as a manager being responsible for investments and he has worked as a brewing manager for Heineken in Mircurea Ciuc and Targu Mures.
He worked for 3 years as a director for Heineken and he had to move wherever the company wanted. He quit in the beginning of 2017 and he has been living from his savings ever since. Brewing beer is a hobby for him, but now he’s starting to make money from it as well.
He started one and a half years ago and he had to overcome a lot of bureaucracy to get a permit for brewing beer and he will get it soon. Unfortunately, he has to fulfill the same requirements as an industrial brewery and he has to accept inspections of his brewery and pay a lot for it. In addition, he has to pay extra tax for producing drinks with alcohol according to Romanian law.
When he quit his last job, he got a kit for making beer from his colleagues. Thereafter, he bought a 25 litres set for making mash from New Zealand. Not being content with its thermal performance, he has put a layer of thermal insulation around it.
Inside the brewery
Mr. Szabó buys malt and crushes it manually in a mill, the beer making machine has an inner porous cylinder and an outer tight cylinder. He pours crushed malt in the inner cylinder together with water. He heats it up and after some time, the water has turned into wort. The mash is given to the poultry.
Mash
He boils the wort, next he adds hops because they add flavour and kill bacteria. Thereafter, he pours the liquid into a fermentation tank and adds yeast. Then, fermentation is done at a controlled temperature of about 10°C for 1 week. After the main fermentation, the beer is matured for another 2 weeks in stainless steel vessels.
Fermentation tank
When the fermentation is finished, he removes the yeast or he lets out the beer. In any case, he pours the beer into containers and stores them in a fridge with a controlled temperature of about 0.5°C. This is the maturing process.
Mr. Szabó makes 100 litres beer a week and he works 16 hours per week. He asked me to calculate how much he produced per hour and that should be 100l/16h = 6.25 litres of beer per hour.
He starts making new beer while another batch is fermenting, he’s reinvesting all profits, he’s selling his products to friends and he sells a lot to doctors in Bucharest.
He wants to sell beer in bottles to a pub, bringing the bottles back to his place, removing the labels and washing them himself. Then, he can ensure that there is always fresh beer in the pub.
He will make draft beer later.
Some Romanian beers had good quality in communist times, but after 1989, Romanians discovered beers from Western Europe. Big breweries arrived, a price war erupted and in order to survive there were two possibilities:
1. develop a less lossy production.
2. use less ingredients, turning the beer into water beer.
Craft beer started being developed at the same time with aroma and content, but it’s too rich and tasteful for many people.
He wants to make something in the middle between water beer and craft beer.
He follows the German clean law for beer-making using only water, hops, malt and yeast.
He glues labels to his bottles by means of milk. Then, he can wash them off easily after the bottles have been returned.
He’s willing to exchange 4-6 bottles of beer with a bottle of good wine
He has three compost heaps, each one one year older than the others and all of them are fermenting and producing heat. After three years, he transfers some of the finished compost to the two other ones and he uses the rest as fertiliser.
During our visit, it was obvious that we were visiting an engineer: from modifying the beer-making set, the temperature-controlled setup for maturing the beer, the chicken coop and the compost heaps. This is a man who likes to solve problems and he does it in a practical way!
We met Mr Szilard Fazakas outside his family’s house, next we entered the workshop located next to the house. It had been a stable, but he had converted it into a workshop with tiles on the floors and the lower walls.
Having passed his office, we entered the workshop where there were some idle machines together with a chocolate tempering machine constantly moving liquid chocolate.
When he should start his company, Mr Fazakas was wondering about a brand name and, at a family reunion, he discovered the name Krausz, the last name of his great grandmother. She had two daughters and the name disappeared. He thought it was perfect and catchy, immediately calling his company Krausz chocolate.
Spots of cocoa butter are visible on the surface of the chocolate if not done correctly, a phenomenon, which is called crystalisation. An interesting video about crystallisation can be watched here. Mr Fazakas wants the surface to be shiny, smooth and brown, which he obtains by extracting liquid chocolate when it has the correct temperature.
Pouring chocolate mass in a mould
He used a ladle to put liquid chocolate in a mould with symmetric voids, laid it on a shaker and let it be shaken for some time to get rid of bubbles and make the chocolate even before he scraped away the excess chocolate with a spatula. Next, he poured the contents of the mould into the chocolate bath and put it in a freezer.
Letting excess chocolate leave the mould
When he took it out again, the voids in the mould were covered with a thin layer of chocolate.
Next, he put some walnut cream in a plastic bag and shaped it into a piping bag, cutting a small hole in the thin end.
Walnut cream in a cone-shaped plastic bag with a hole at the base
He laid walnut kernels in each void of the mould covered by chocolate.
Putting walnuts in the voids of the chocolate
Next, he pressed walnut cream on top of the walnut kernels, filling the voids.
Putting walnut cream on each chocolate
Finally, he took chocolate with a ladle from the tempering machine and poured it over the complete mould. Thereafter, he scraped away excess chocolate, put it on the shaker and scraped away more chocolate. In the end, he put it in a freezer.
He also laid blackberries from this village on the surface of a still liquid chocolate lying in a mould.
Mr Fazaka’s philosophy philosophy is to be a local producer, producing as much as people want to buy, but quality is more important than quantity. In fact, he spent 6 months to create a palette. Fortunately, there is a low health risk when making and selling chocolate.
Once, he should make 5000 chocolates for the pope’s visit and he had to make a mould, a recipe and packaging. Unfortunately, the representative from the church was bargaining so much that he had to compromise on quality, meaning that the chocolates didn’t measure up to his high requirements.
Another time, he made a mould for a coffee shop, but it was too complex and chocolate was remaining in the mould when he should extract it.
His greatest challenge is the packing machine, which he bought new, but it melts the chocolate and he can’t use it. Anyway, he has a Hungarian packing machine, which is 80 years old and it works well.
He bought the shaking machine first, but it can also be used as a tempering machine. He’s planning to reuse it together with the old packing machine. He wants to make chocolate with dried plum in this machine where the chocolate will be carried on a conveyor belt and be cooled down by means of air blowing over them.
He also needs to follow up printing companies tightly such that they make labels according to his wishes.
He’s selling his products under another brand name in supermarkets and it gives him more profit. He also sells his products in flower shops and wine cellars under his own brand name. He prefers to have as many sellers and retailers as possible because he only wants to be an entrepreneur, experimenting, designing and producing chocolate. In fact, he wants to sell both chocolate, ice cream and cheese.
Mr Fazakas started making and selling ice cream in 2010 and stopped in 2018.
He buys cocoa from Italy.
He has a golden rule: never rinse the moulds with water. Instead, he melted chocolate in a mould with hot air, then removed the remains with a cloth.
He studied at a university in Cluj and he learnt chocolate-making there, but he prefers this quiet place to Cluj. It’s a good place to grow up for his children and his family can get what they want from Mircurea Ciuc.
He got an EU grant for startup companies and he gets help from his parents.
Before VAT was 20% for all products, but now its 9% for food such that he can earn more.
We went to the the butchery of Nagy Géza, which looked liked any house from the outside. After about 80 visits to small-scale producers in Romania, the one thing they have in common is that they are unpretentious.
Having entered, we were led to a room where three men were cutting up pig’s meat with knives. Surprisingly, they didn’t wear gloves. In fact, there was nothing that protected them them against severe cuts!. When I asked my guide about it, the man in in charge said that they only would use safety gloves if they had to. Fortunately, they hadn’t had any accidents so far.
The butchers at work
Cutting meat with razor-sharp knives, working methodically in silence, everybody knowing exactly what to do, they made it look easy, but that was because they were so good at it. One tragicomic thing about this was that there wasn’t even a first-aid kit where they were working, while the women, who were preparing food, had one!
All the premises looked clean, there were tiles on the floor and on the lower part of the walls. Likewise, the workers wore clean clothes and clean aprons.
Thighs of pigs were hanging from the ceiling and the workers were cutting them up, sorting meat and fat into plastic boxes. The skin was put in a separate box, fat in another one, the best meat was separated, while the lowest quality meat was for sausages. Separating bones and meat was done quickly and easily.
Cutting meat
They have to work hard to satisfy demand because many people like their products even though they can buy cheaper meat products from big factories.
Freshly cut meat
The boss learnt the trade from his grandfather and his brother. In fact, he was part of a family who had been butchers for generations.
Lard
Those who want to be butchers need to start when they are about 16 years old. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any apprentices at the moment. In general, adolescents don’t want to do this type of work. There is a training course for budding butchers, but it is difficult for beginners.
Now they can buy equipment like special knives in a shop nearby, but before it was difficult to get the knives they needed. Likewise, before they didn’t have a refrigerated car, but they have one now. They deliver meat products to customers within a 60km radius.
The nearest slaughterhouse is 60 to 70 km away.
There are 8 workers here and it is a family company. They want to expand it and turn a former barn into a butchery.
One of the workers work here part-time, else he works as an organist and sings in a church. The other one has small children, boy and girl, but they are too small to work here. He will try to persuade them as they get older. The wife and daughter of the boss work in the kitchen.
There is one big butchery with which they have good relations. The owner of another butchery died, one of his workers have bought it and wants to run it. Else, there are plenty of small producers, who operate illegally. They slaughter a pig and cut it up at once in an ad-hoc operation.
Before, the man in charge worked with cow and calf meat, but not any more. Now, he only works with pig’s meat and he doesn’t want to mix types of meat. He doesn’t like horse meat and he doesn’t want to work with it. Some of the villagers ask him to cut up sheep or cows, but he does it only for them and never under his brand name.
They have a smoke room for smoking their products and a cooler room for storage. They let the meat mature for a month by hanging from meat hooks in the cooler rooms. This is costly for the butcher, but good for the quality of the meat.
Suspended cold cuts
Some meat products are smoked and some are dried and smoked.
Smoked meat products
Moreover, some meat was lying in brine where the salt in the brine enters the food leading to that bacteria are killed.
Meat in brine
They make meat products like salami, bacon, black pudding, cold cuts, sausages and ham.
Before we left, the man in charge kindly served us a collection of their products. Black pudding was not for me, else it was delicious.
Attila asked me what kind of small-scale producers I would like to visit in his area, then I mentioned a bakery or a confectionery. After some phone calls, he had tracked down the confectionery of Mrs Anna Olah Nagy.
Before, the locals came to her with ingredients and asked her to make a cake, but often it wasn’t enough and she had to add some. Moreover, they didn’t pay since they had brought the ingredients, but she got tired of it. One day she set up a sign on the gate that cakes were for sale and people started buying them.
She learnt baking from her mother and grandmother, who still helps a lot even though she’s 92 years old.
When we visited her, she was making a cake with pig’s fat called Hájas tészta. The finished cake resembles Danish pastry with its airy consistency.
Inside a cakes called Hájas tészta
She flattened the dough with a rolling pin and hit it with the same utensil.
Rolling the doughHitting the dough with a rolling pin
Next, she put fat on the dough and spread it out over the whole surface.
Putting pig’s fat on the dough
She folded the dough in a certain way, folding it on the long sides, then on the short ones until she had made a block of dough.
Folding the dough
Finally, she put the fat on top of the dough and put it in a plastic bag, letting it rest for about 20 minutes.
She would do the same three times and it takes 4-5 hours to make this cake.
Fortunately, she was making two of this cake on the same day so we didn’t have to wait long before she did the same procedure again. Then, small bumps appeared on the surface and she told my guide that it was a sign of quality.
There should be two weddings in the weekend and 60 kg of cakes was required for each wedding.
This is her only job and she’s working at home.
When she makes cakes for weddings, etc. she starts on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and finishes on time on Friday or Saturday.
She showed us a cake with marzipan flowers. In fact, she makes marzipan and shapes it into flowers.
A finished cake
She also makes cookies and cakes without orders and advertises them on her facebook page and people are coming to her confectionery to buy them. There is also a small shop with products from small-scale producers in this area and it’s possible to buy her products there.
She has two children, one son in Switzerland and a daughter in high school. She helps her mother in summer holidays.
Her family has a guesthouse in the mountains and they also have some pigs, which they slaughter for meat for themselves and their guests. They also take the fat, which is located near the stomach of the pig, and use it for making Hájas tészta.
The house is located near the main road passing through the village of Ghimes-Fáget near the Antal guesthouse.
Before we left, she generously gave us a lot of the cakes she had been making earlier in the day.
I went back for another stay at Attila’s farm. The children had grown a lot since last time and a small girl had been born since last time I was there.
The kitchen garden near their house had potatoes ready for picking and a man with a horse should plow the potato field, but he didn’t arrive.
In the evening, I followed Attila to a pasture where some cows and calves were grazing. All of them came when he called, the calves jumping and running, being playful and full of energy. He had bought two calves from Tirol and they should be more robust against diseases than the local cattle.
Playful calves
The cows went inside the building where Attila chained their necks, gave them cereals in a bucket, tied the tail to the hind leg, cleaned the udders with water and milked a small amount from each udder into a metal cup. Later, the contents would be given to the pigs.
Milking a cow
Next, he milked the rest into another bucket, pouring the contents through a filter into a stainless steel container each time he had finished milking a cow. Thereafter, he did the same procedure with the other ones.
Milking a cow
The cows were busy eating the cereals while being milked, even licking the bucket when it was empty. When all the cows had been milked, he let them out. In fact, they would stay outside all night inside an enclosure. The next day, they would be allowed to go other pastures.
Next, we went back again to a place where he had a bull to which he gave hay. Then, he entered the pigsty where he fed 4 pigs cereals, potatoes and pumpkins from the kitchen garden. Finally, he let them out such that he could clean it. Like the calves, the pigs also seemed very content when they were let out, running inside the courtyard.
Going for food
There were three types of potatoes, one red and two light brown or beige. They didn’t use any pesticides, but it had rained a lot and there was blight on some of them. Anyway, two of the potato types were good, while the third one was not good. The potatoes with blight would be given to the pigs.
On our way back, a horse was pulling a log being aided by a man who was using a tool to loosen the log, while another one was leading the horse.
A horse pulling a log
After sunset, I followed Attila’s family up on a hill above the village, listening for rutting deer. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear any deer, but Attila did. Obviously, his listening is better than mine.
The next day, his father’s cows were used as beasts of burden. He brought them to the kitchen garden and attached a yoke to their necks such that they had to stay side by side, added a piece of rope to be able to pull them and attached a plow to the yoke. Then, Attila led the cows and his father was plowing, everything at walking pace.
Plowing a field by means of cows
Using a mixture of encouraging commands and light strikes with a stick, Attila made the cows pull the plow, seemingly a very easy task for them, as potatoes were continually being exposed by the plow. When they reached the end of the field, his father detached the plow and Attila made them turn 180 degrees, making them ready for another round. The whole process was repeated until all the fields had been plowed.
Plowing a field
At last, Attila and his father were picking the potatoes by hand, sorting the big ones for eating, the middle ones as seed potatoes and the bad and small ones for the pigs. The amount of potatoes were enough for their families and the guesthouse.
Picking potatoes
Next year, the field with lucerne would be replaced by a potato field and vice versa and maize would be planted along the length of the potato field, like this year.
Various vegetables lying on the sides of the fields seemed to be irresistible to the cows, which ate whatever they could get with relish. Actually, they were always trying to eat whenever it was possible, in particular one of them.
When the plowing had been done, the cows were attached to some farm equipment and they were fed withered maize and turnips growing along the potato field. The hungry cow looked very content as it was eating the maize.
A hungry cow
Inside the courtyard of Attila’s family, a couple of ducks were roaming freely and a rooster was crowing from morning till evening inside the chicken coop.
It has to be mentioned that this village is acoustically interesting. During my short stay, in addition to the happenings described above, I could also hear people mowing hay, grinding their scythes, horses pulling wagons, cows being let out to graze in the morning, ravens, etc. I would like to come back and do field recordings. In the meantime, it’s possible to listen to these ones.
We arrived at about 6 in the morning in pitch darkness at this farm. Somehow we met Jonas, who we followed into the barn where he fed the kids, while a big male was in a separate place. Next, we entered the dairy where a young local man was milking the goats.
The goats moved up a short ramp where they could only turn left to the milking machines. Each goat found its place and started eating fodder. Next, a metal bar was lowered over the necks of all of them. The worker attached pumping devices to the udders and started the milking machine. After some time, the oldest goat at 10 years old, was trampling to show that she didn’t have any more milk.
When the udders of the goats were empty, some transparent plastic containers through which the milk was passing also turned empty. Then, the worker removed the pumping devices and hung them up on a railing. Then, he opened a gate such that the goats could walk down another ramp, next he closed a door such that they couldn’t return. The same procedure was redone until all the goats had been milked.
After he had finished the milking, he emptied the remaining milk in a hose into a container with the rest of the milk. Next, he rinsed all the equipment and carried the container to the dairy. There, Jonas poured the milk into a stainless steel container, turned on heat and waited till it reached about 40°C. Next, he added liquid mould, rennet and a liquid which increased yield. That is, it turned more milk into cheese. Thereafter, we went for breakfast.
The companies, which are producing milking machines, didn’t want to give Jonas a quote. One company had a subsidiary in Bucharest and they sent him a quote, but they didn’t want to come here. In the end, he connected all mains electricity and plumbing himself to the dairy. Finally, the company was willing to send two technicians to his place and assemble the milking machinery.
He brought goats from Belgium, but it was very difficult to get them registered by the local vets, although inspecting goats is easier than cows. In the end, he had to bring the vets to his place and bring them back again when they were finished.
He has 14 milking goats and 8 small ones, which were born this year. In addition, he had slaughtered 2 male goats. He thinks 24 goats would be enough since the milking machine can accommodate 12 goats only.
Jonas told us that the goats stop producing milk in winter and they start producing milk again about 1 March. He’s using this period to work as a freelance engineer on ships, being well paid and saving money for the rest of the year.
He spent the summer haymaking, doing manual mowing only and he took part in all stages of it because buying hay isn’t an option.
The hillsides above the farm have lots of flowers and they smell like an organic, herbal tea shop. This is good for the goats because they are what they eat and, of course, for the cheese. He mowed the grass on the hills above the house, put it on tarpaulins and pulled it down to the house, making haystacks, else he would have to hire a horse, driver and cart and freight it here.
Several farmers are mowing grass to receive subsidies although they have no animals and they throw away the grass.
Before it was easy to mow someone’s land where he left 2/3 to the owner and took 1/3 himself, but not any more.
Some owners come to him and ask him to mow the land and pay him for the work, but he needs workers. It’s simply too much work for one person. Since fewer people work the land, lots of hay is not cut any more.
Many people between 20 and 50 work abroad, doing work, which Western Europeans don’t want. This means that Jonas has problems getting workers to help him.
Some local people earn a lot of money in Western Europe, then come back and spend it, but they don’t want to work here.
When Jonas and his wife Katalin first came to Mircurea Ciuc, he looked for an engineering job, but none was available. Since he had always liked goats, he decided to be a goat farmer instead. First, he had to ask his neighbours within a radius of 100 m if they would accept that he started a goat farm and all of them accepted, but only one could sign his name. Jonas had to sign for the rest.
However, he can’t get a subsidy if the land is not registered. That is, he needs to prove that he’s the owner of the land. The land around Mircurea Ciuc was registered during the communist period, but the Gyimes valley was ignored.
As described here, lots of land was divided among family members into small plots before the communist period.
Jonas told us the following regarding registering of land:
⦁ When a surveyor appears in a village, he is often surrounded by those who are most greedy.
⦁ Some people claim they own land they don’t own when the surveyor appears. Many people are illiterate and are easy to fool.
⦁ A quick survey method had to be abandoned because so many “smart” people were claiming land from their neighbours. In addition, if one sibling stayed at home and the other ones were away, he could claim all the land as his.
⦁ People who work at the land registry in Bucharest work very slowly regarding registering land in the Hungarian-speaking part of the country.
⦁ Lots of land has been registered in the Romanian-speaking part.
⦁ The Romanian government was imposed by the EU to register all land within 2018, but many parts of the Hungarian-speaking land are still not registered. The Romanian government wants to register uninhabited land in order to increase quickly the amount of registered land, but it won’t help people where they live. Unfortunately, registering land where people live is more time-consuming.
⦁ Jonas and 5-6 other farmers have formed an association to speed up registering of their land.
After breakfast, we went back to the dairy where a young local woman was cleaning and working as an assistant for Jonas. He transferred the curds to porous plastic buckets by opening a valve at the base of the stainless steel container and letting the contents flow out. Next, he laid the buckets on a metal table with a hole through which the whey could escape.
He added dried nettle to the curds in the two porous buckets and mixed it thoroughly with his hands. Next, he added peppers to two other porous buckets and mixed it with the curds again.
After he had mixed the curds with dried herbs, he added more curd and mixed everything again. Thereafter, he put on lids on all the buckets and put pressure on them. Later, he would release the pressure and turn the buckets upside down. Next, he would lay the cheeses in salt water. The day after, he would put them in a cool room for maturing.
While Jonas was making cheese, the young woman was making ricotta. When he had removed all the curds from the stainless steel container, he emptied the remaining whey into a kettle. By heating it, white flakes of curd started appearing on the surface of the whey after some time. When there was enough curd on the surface, she used a sieve with a handle to lift it up and put it in a perforated plastic basket, letting the remaining whey flow out and the ricotta remain.
When she wasn’t making cheese or ricotta, she was cleaning and after both making cheese and ricotta was finished, she cleaned everything, which had been used.
As regards making soft cheese, Jonas told us that some whey should stay in the curd, the cheese should be laid on a metal grid, it should be turned upside down twice daily. White mould should start appearing on the surface of the cheese after 2-3 days. If not, it is probably not suitable for human consumption.
One of his cheeses was full of small holes resembling somewhat a Swiss cheese. I asked him why it looked like that and he said that it was something the goats were eating.
Jonas told us that demand is larger than supply. He delivers his cheeses to a vegetarian restaurant in Mircurea Ciuc and to a burger place in the same town.
According to Jonas, city people think cow farmers are better than goat farmers.
He told us that EU funds are much easier to get for big farms, but very difficult for small ones because there is a lot of paperwork, which has to be filled out. Big farms can pay someone to do it, but it’s not possible for small ones.
One day, inspectors, who were extremely meticulous, came to him without warning, but they couldn’t find anything apart from some paperwork, which had to be finished within a certain time.
They asked him the usual question: where does the water come from? From the hills above the farm. He had to provide a water sample, a milk sample, a bottle sample and a cheese sample to them. Everything was analysed and found to be ok. In the end, he asked them why they did it and they gave him a white lie. He said he didn’t believe them and finally they admitted that envious people in the village had sent them. He almost gave up the farm after the inspection. Fortunately, he’s still raising goats and making goat’s cheese.
The local high school wants to send pupils to local companies for practise because they are tired of reading and sitting in a classroom. Only Trifolium Kajo, the ski slope and the dairy can employ young people, though.
Jonas had two adolescents here and he tried to teach them about his farm, asking them questions about the dairy to test if they had learnt their lessons. He also let them drive a small tractor.
There should be a cheese conference in Bucharest the week after our visit. While there, he would present his problems in public.
His cheeses are not bio-certified products, but they are good enough. There is too much paperwork to get them certified as organic products.
Jonas and Katalin accept and accommodate volunteers from WWOOF Romania as described here.
A wwoofer from Belgium was present and a couple from Australia would arrive later. Now, he needs help with building work, before he needed help for mowing.
He also said that he had bought a house not far away from the farm. He wanted to rent it out and he had hired a carpenter to refurbish it. Unfortunately, only one German family had staid there this summer.
The house is on registered land and it has space for 9 people. He had kept an old apple tree near the house although the carpenter wanted to cut it because he said it was in the way when he was working. He showed us the house too and it looked very modern inside.
Surprisingly, he was refurbishing the barn himself as if he hadn’t enough to do before.
For those who want peace and quiet, lovely scenery and good hiking terrain, it should be an excellent choice.
Last but not least, he always wore a hat during our last visit, while this time he showed us what was remaining of his unruly hair!
Driving past the village of Zoltán and passing a muddy road, we arrived at the property of Gergely László and his wife. Inside a fence, they had beehives, an orchard, a pond, a chicken coop and a small house. The property was 3/2 hectares and 5-6 dogs were protecting it against bears.
Upon entering the property, we were met by all the dogs, next we were invited to join Mr Gergely to his 8-sided pavilion, which was located next to a pond being replenished by water falling down from a wooden chute. Herbs were hanging from the ceiling and they would be turned into herbal teas when time was due.
While my guide was speaking with Mr Gergely, I noticed a slingshot lying on the table. It was used for scaring away frogs and toads, which were eating fish in the pond.
The Gergely couple bought the land, which was a vegetable garden in communist times, 4 years ago and they had to pay for a survey of 20 hectares to get the property registered. In fact, they paid more for the survey than for the land. The water flowing into the pond came from two wells located 600 m from the pond. Both of them contain large pieces of concrete and they are camouflaged in order to avoid sabotage.
Many years ago, a friend tried to convince him to be a beekeeper, but he resisted for several years. Next, he got one beehive as a gift and found that he liked beekeeping. Then, his friend made him receive 27 more beehives. He collaborated with him and learnt from him and other beekeepers, but now his friend is ill.
The first 3 years were very difficult and he had to ask for help often, but he gradually learnt how to do it. After many years of beekeeping, 6 of them as a professional, he can easily survive 30-50 bee stings, but he has to protect his face.
The beekeeping is family-driven: husband, wife, and 2 daughters. He does most of the work, but everyone extracts honey.
Originally both husband and wife were forest engineers with their own timber business, but it didn’t pay off, being heavily influenced by the price of timber. Moreover, an Austrian timber company built a big sawmill nearby and out-competed small producers.
This is the first year they only sell honey, while before they were selling timber and honey.
After a while, Mr Gergely let us see him inspect his beehives. He only used a hood with netting to protect his face, while we had protection for our upper bodies. While he was showing his beehives, opening some of them, he went on talking about beekeeping.
Mr Gergely has 100 beehives here and 130 close to forests, 30-50 km from here and they would be brought home soon. The mobile bees are released near or on meadows from July to autumn and they can pollinate any type of flower. He needs one person to help him load and unload the beehives and he has to go twice to fetch the beehives because there is too little space in his car.
There were a lot of empty racks, but they would be filled with the mobile beehives.
The season starts in Feb-March, April when the bees start collecting pollen, mainly from flowers, depending on the vegetation in the area. This year, they had been collecting a lot of pollen from linden, but not so much from acacia and rapeseed.
2019 was a bad year for beekeepers in this area because of a cold, rainy spring, but the rest of the year had been good so far.
He sells minimum 2000 kg and maximum 7000 kg of honey a year. He always wants to ensure quality. His golden rule is to apply no additives and no sugar.
He says that beekeeping is not an exact science, you need experience and attention to detail and you have to accommodate all situations.
He has mounted a scale below some random beehives in order to measure how much honey the bees are producing, while all other weights are estimates. There may be more, the same or less than the ones which are weighed.
Experienced beekeepers have 200 beehives, 100 stationary and 100 mobile. After some time, they have to make the mobile bees stronger by means of the stationary ones.
Pesticides are a problem and the beekeepers want the government to enforce a ban on pesticides for rapeseed when the flowers are blooming, but they aren’t listened to.
He has a dilemma regarding the consistency of the honey: in about 1 of 40 jars, the honey crystallises , while the others stay liquid and he doesn’t know why. Those who want to know more about honey crystallisation can watch this video.
He feeds sugar and water to the bees in winter, but they are also eating honey in order to survive.
Varroa causes problems for the bees and he treats them with medicine. If it doesn’t work, they make herbal teas for the bees.
The bees are stealing from each other, strong bees from weak ones. He’s trying to minimise the problem by using a small opening in the weak beehives.
Honeydew is a valuable type of honey, but he hasn’t been able to make it.
1 kg jars of honey are very popular and they are selling all of them.
In case of a cold February and a mild March, the bees stay with their young rather than going to the outer frames with honey, keeping the young warm. That is, the grown-up bees prefer to starve to death in order to protect their young.
We also walked around the orchard and the kitchen garden. They were growing fruit trees like apple, plum, pear and quince together with raspberry, mulberry, tomatoes and others. Besides, they are growing rapeseed, acacia, lime and sunflower.
Mr Gergely’s wife fed the poultry and the rabbits during our visit.
He’s fed up with city life, he wants to be self-sufficient and live here and get water from a well. However, he has no mains electricity. The area, being surrounded by fields, is quiet and peaceful and there are no neighbours nearby.
They have a house in the village and they want to sell it. Regarding electricity, they can get get mains or use solar power with batteries, which must be changed every 6-7 years. Mains electricity is more convenient, but it has a high initial investment.
Their eldest daughter studies to be a vet. She gets offers to work abroad, but she wants to come home and help her father. The other daughter goes to high school.
