How did we go from getting a bunch of papers to actually building a museum? How did it all begin? What set the idea off was when my father, Albert Molnár, bought several thick folders with neatly organized documents in them. The papers had once been the property of the Szánthó family who ran a…
Saint Andrew’s day on the 30th November is nearing. In olden times this day was special for girls because on the eve of the day they could predict their future husband. For farmers in general, however, it had a more universal significance: it marked the end of the agricultural year and as cold weather set…
PaprikaMolnár has just finished drying the freshly picked paprika fruits. The first grinds are ready and we have stocked up for winter. So it’s high time I did an assessment of this autumn’s harvest now. Every paprika year is different and there’s always something that surprises the farmer and the processor. This year the rainy…
World War I – or, as it was called then the Great War – ended a hundred years ago. The war was ignited by the tragic event on 28 July 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo. The Balkan powder keg exploded and various conflicts within Europe escalated into war,…
Zsigmond Móricz, early-20th century writer and columnist visited Szeged in 1913. Szeged was a new and upcoming town then, just barely rebuilt after the Great Flood. He loved to sit and talk to local people, seek out what they were like, what made them Szegedi. In his prose collection called Paprika is in the…
After the previous post I’m continuing with translating another literary text written by early-20th century writer and columnist, Zsigmond Móricz. The original and full stories In Hungarian appeared in his prose collection called Paprika is in the air. From the writings we get to know Szeged the city and its people in the 1910s through the insights…
In this Paprika & Chili blog I have already written about representations of paprika in Hungarian literature. Now I’d like to continue with a series of literary texts written by early-20th century writer and columnist, Zsigmond Móricz. The stories appeared in his prose collection called Paprika is in the air. Móricz was non-native to Szeged, but…
It is October and we are in the middle of paprika harvest and processing. Among autumn to-dos is paprika processing, which today is by no means easy and quick but a lot easier than in the past. Until the 1930s all paprika pods were naturally hot and it was local farmers in the mid-19th century…
Autumn is the busiest time of the agricultural year and it’s true for the red spice paprika varieties, too. Picking, post-harvest ageing and processing was always an arduous job and it is no different today. Harvest traditionally started on 8 September, the Day of the Blessed Virgin Mary and ended before frost set in or until…
„Discovering is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought” said Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine in 1937. Albert Szent-Györgyi was born on 16 September 1893. In this post we are celebrating the life and work of this wonderful man. A charming personality, an eventful…
Szeged Lowertown has always been a separate entity within Szeged city. Its homogeneous Hungarian population followed strict Roman Catholic ethics and made a living from agriculture. Among their most famous crops were tobacco and paprika. The two most important characteristics by the end of the 19th century were their religious faith and the sweet paprika spice called…
September the 8th is one of the many Marian devotion days in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. In olden times the people of Szeged on this day devoted time and piety to the Blessed Virgin Mary. September was a busy time for a Catholic farmer, and on this day thoughts and prayers probably…
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