The secrets of Hungarian kitchen – Hungarian salami

Without the paprika spice most of the famous Hungarian salami and sausage types would be unimaginable. The main values of the base philosophy of their producers are the tradition and the quality. The units having many decades of history provide the secret recipes of the production generation by generation.

During their history the technology has changed a lot, was modernized but the spice and the base ingredients of the world famous salami and sausages are the same as it had been in the times of our greatest grandfathers. Most of the sausage types are spiced by garlic which — despite of that it is not ancient in the Carpathian basin – today can be listed among the unmitigated Hungaricum. Of course the onion is alike.

In the history of the domestic gastronomy the salamis are consumable for a long time and worth a separate chapter. The secret of their preparation, preservation was gathered by the butcher masters working in the Hungarian front castles in the early times from the Italian stone carvers, bricklayers helping there. The first recipe written in Hungarian remained from 1780. The dollop created by hand-cutting of three different types of meat was filled into beef or horse bowel and had been mixed with scented spices and bacon.

The grease helped the preservation and made the salami softer and more tasteful. The salami production was a handcraft work for a long time.

Generally the butcher masters prepared them besides — mainly in the winter months — their main activity the cut and work up of the four-leg animals. They did not produce a lot, maximum a few hundreds of kilos a year. The production became industrial in the sixties of the 19,h centu­ry, but by such intensity so that the factories of Győr, Szeged, Debrecen and Budapest were founded almost in the same time. By the turn of the century thirteen great plants was dealing with salami production already. Their products were well-known and bought not only here at home and within the borders of the Monarchy but also all over Europe.