Kiev brought us another imposing Soviet station and an early start, so we sat a while in the massive station canteen, sipping our compot and cottage cheese pancakes. One of the metro lines is decorated Moscow-style and takes us to the studio apartment we’d booked – about £55pn. The idea was that since it was Sunday there might be some activities going on at the architecture and folk museum in the southern suburbs. Getting there was a little tricky; going
We arrived at a grand station in Lviv but our concern was to change our 200H notes into something we could use on public transport. Lots of taxi hassle. We found a battered tram and immediately felt transported back 50 years as we shuddered through a grey and drizzling Lviv. Posters in the tram could have been from the 30s. A party of 30 schoolkids squeezed on to add to the atmosphere. The Hotel George was nice in an old
Travel into the Ukraine could have been so much easier. I could have simply bought tickets on the Budapest-Moscow sleeper. But to save a little money we bought a ticket from Mad to Záhony on the Hungarian border. We changed a couple of times but avoided having to speak the town we could not pronounce (Nyíregyháza). A 2 hour wait in the massive EU-funded railway junction that is Záhony. Finally a two carriage train appeared 30 minutes before departure. Hungarian passport
Alongside the killing is another miracle of cooking. As the parts come off, a series of parallel dishes are prepared. (I probably didn’t follow all of these as closely as I should have.) Fried blood The blood is kept but not stirred. Instead it’s allowed to coagulate and finally cut into neat cuboids. The consistency is of jelly, but it stains. The lumps are simmered in garlic water. A pot of onions and slices of quince are tried, and the
The slaughter of the pig is probably the main reason many of us are here. As a meat-eating group we feel we should understand where our food comes from and what is involved in its production. A 6.30 start and a rainy morning; the weather otherwise has been good. We take a traditional palinka in the cellar beforehand to steel ourselves. The pig (not a mangalitza) is lying quietly in its pen. The killing The killing itself is swift and
Open Trips The trip was organised through Open Trips, a site where you dream and design your perfect food holiday, recruit some companions and find help to get it organised. Mád Mád is close to Tokaj and some of the best wine in the region comes from this village. 15 foreigners descended on this quiet village to bemuse the locals, steal the wifi in their bar, relieve local winemakers of excess bottles and laugh at the ‘Balaton Bumm’ confectionery. There
