Paprika?

It was the fall, and the harvests were being brought it.
Every market has fresh things, and farmer's markets are still held in most European towns at least once a week or more often.

Deanne will have to explain the many different kinds of Paprika the Hungarians use.

I will just explain how wonderful it tastes. Since we eat three times a day, obviously Austrian and Hungarian food was a daily delight.

I don't want to bore you with a catalogue of what we ate! But I do want to extract some essences from what we enjoyed.

1.) I don't know what they do that is different from what we do, but the Austrians make bread like no where else in the world. Their white bread isn't mushy. Their heavy bread isn't too heavy, their rye breads aren't bitter!

2.) We were warned by all the guide books (we had 5 for Hungary alone) that "vegetarians will have a hard time in Hungary" since they love meat so much. And it is true that on the table for lunch at my meetings they had Meat wrapped inside Meat!

However even at this meeting, vegetarian choices were available, and all the restaurants we went to either had some meatless choices, or they accommodated us cheerfully and very nicely with meatless dishes. This was a mushroom goulash.

This was a garden fresh crepe or some such wonderful concoction.

Now if they say vegans would have a hard time, I might agree, since dairy was used in many of their options. But we had wonderfully tasty vegetables, we had mushroom goulashes, we had mushrooms wrapped in a thin pancake and then deep fried making a fantastic entree. And every town had a market day with farmer fresh fruits and vegetables offered.

And even if you love meat, you would love the wonderful Vegetarium Etterum (Now this one Hungarian word that makes sense, an eatery! for restaurant) down in a basement location so wonderfully decorated, and with a fantastic menu.

3.) My personal delight was to eat Palatschinken again, those thin pancakes filled with sweet Quark (or Topfen) cheeses and raisins, some lemon juice, and covered with powdered sugar. But I also enjoyed a Kaiserschmieren, which is a fluffy sweet souffle at the Central Cafe in Vienna, Austria.

4.) And the grape juice! Fresh Traubensaft was available in Austria, especially now at harvest time.

In Hungary we had Apricot or Peach nectar often, but a special drink was Meggy which is a sour cherry nectar that seems a Hungarian specialty that Deanne much favored.