Hungarian Visitors

This past week I have been helping my organization, the Organic Farmers Association of Romania, Bioterra, display at the Transylvania Agricultural Expo. The Expo is a large gathering of vendors presenting their goods and services to the farmers from a wide area of the country. It is an annual event and as part of it, we bring along several of our members that have organic farms so that they may display and sell their produce. We have honey, eggs, sunflower oil, wheat and cereals, and medicinal plant producers in our ‘salon ecologic’. On the Bioterra table, we have available books that the association has published on various subjects of organic farming and next to us is our sister organization, Eco Inspect, that conducts official certification of organic farms.

I assigned myself the job of giving away pencils and old copies of our quarterly magazine and selling the books. I repeat my stock phrase in Romanian and as long as no one asks me a question I do fine – making change and smiling and saying thank you. When someone does ask a question or starts making comments that require more than a simple ‘da’, I reach for the nearest colleague. It is a break from my routine of office work and allows me to get out and meet some of our members and potential members. I hope that I make good window dressing. I know that I can’t compete with the slim, young ladies in their mini skirts, but I do what I can and the children seem to love it when I respond to their Romanian thank you with “you're welcome,” in English.

Part of our area was given over to a successful organic farm from Hungary. Dressed in traditional costumes and equipped with jams, pastes and canned vegetables, our friends made quite a splash offering samples of their Slanina (pork fat), spreads and jams. They were even more of a hit when they broke out their traditional musical instruments and starting singing. Many of the farmers of Transylvania are of Hungarian background, so they knew the songs. We’d have regular sing-alongs. If the customers were particularly friendly, then the jug of Polenca, a strong plum brandy, was passed around.

One evening after promoting organic agriculture all day we were driven out to a village about twenty miles from Cluj where there is a well-known Hungarian restaurant, Tomas Bistro. Our visitors, still in authentic garb, complete with black hat with a feather stuck in the band, black jacket with silver buttons over a white shirt, black pants and black boots brought along their music instruments, the zither, and a stick drum.

Before, during and after dinner, they would get up, put their hats on, because they needed to wear their hats to be complete, and they’d play and sing. The zither, or citera, is a 14 string autoharp that lies on the table and sounds somewhat similar to a mandolin. The drum is the size of a large jar and has a wooden stick protruding through the top skin. The drum is not beaten, but the stick is rubbed and the vibration of the wood is echoed in the kettle of the jar. I do not have a picture yet, for I did not have along my camera, but have been promised that one is on the way and I’ll post it.

The Hungarian language is quite strange sounding to my ears and the songs were unintelligible for those of us in the party that were non speakers, but it was interesting listening.

We had a fine time, eating rabbit covered with pheasant gravy and listening to the music but there were two things amiss. Nancy was not along and the chef, who was also the owner of the Bistro, kept stopping by to join in the singing. I doubt that our meal suffered by his inattention to the kitchen but wonder if some of the other diners missed out because the cook was at our table singing.

I sat next to a man from the Netherlands who is establishing an organic buffalo farm near Sibiu – buffalo, as in water buffalo, not as in American Bison. He hopes to milk the cows and use it to make special cheese for export. He still is in the process of building up his herd so he had no samples to bring along, but his was a story of hope, promise and perseverance. Hopefully, I’ll taste his mozzarella cheese before too long.