Everybody like grilling in all over the world, but the Hungarians like standing around a cauldron for hours better. Why? I tell you. (Painting: Bogrács by Mihály Munkácsy, 1864; reproduction: Wikipedia)

Some years ago I was in the team of the organisers of a food festival. It was a tipical Hungarian thing: hey guys, let’s cook something in a cauldron, and at the end a jury will tell you, who is the best in it. In these times I worked for the host of the festival, a local government of a destrict of Budapest and it had invited the delegates of the sister cities to the competition.

They Did Not Know What to Do

 At the beginning it was very funny becouse people from the twin towns in Poland, Bavaria and Bulgaria did not know, what the cauldron is. Or exactly they did not know, what to do with a cauldon. It was the moment, when we had to recognise, that the cauldron is not a tipical tool for the open-air cooking in Europe.

Weekend of a tipical Hungarian family in 1982. While you work or play in the garden, the dinner is boling. At the end you can invite the man next door, too (Photograph: fortepan.hu)

Although the cauldron is well-known in the continent, the roots of the version, what we use, go back to Inner-Asia from where the proto-Hungarians had come to the Carpathian Basin. The forebear of it was the pottery cauldron and the new Hungarian word ’bogrács’ for the metal version comes from the Ottoman-Turkish ’bakraç’, what means copper cauldron.

Fish soup in a restaurant of Dunaújváros, Hungary (1973, photograph: fortepan.hu) 

Okey, but why do not anybody use it? I have read some articles about it but I think, the answer is very simple: grilling and the barbecue are more popular form of the open-air cooking in the Western world, than in the East. We like boiling.

According to the scientists, it comes from the Hun era. They say, that boiling is more popular in Asia than in the wester world, where people like roasting or grilling the meat. 

It is Fine to Do It Slowly

 Grilling is simple and fast, but boiling in a cauldron is a long time activity. We are gethering around the fire, we are talking to each other, we are drinking, singig songs, this is a great social happening.

Herders at a festival, Apaj, Hungary, 1986 (Photograph: fortepan.hu)

 In a previous post I showed you herders cooking in their cauldron, now in the pictures of this post you can see, how widely we use this tool. I hope, sooner or later you will get an invitation to a Hungarian cauldron party, it is really great fun!