Szent István has a holiday

Last week (August 20) was the national holiday in Hungary, which commemorates Szent István (St. Stephen), Hungary’s first king, crowned in 1000 C.E. This was the founding of the Hungarian nation, so this is the main national holiday. Tidbit: István was also a Christian, and, according to my guidebook, required all Hungarians to get married! The August 20 date is the date that he was canonized (in 1083). So that is the history. How do the Hungarians celebrate?

Well, for one thing they put Hungarian flags up everywhere, and in Budapest they have both a cake-cutting ceremony, with a special national cake, and a procession of the saint’s right hand at St. Stephen’s Basilica. In Szeged, I saw many Hungarian flags on the Belvárosi Bridge that I cross each day. They also lay a wreath at István’s statue in Széchenyi tér, the main square in the center of town.

St. Stephen with wreath
St. Stephen with wreath

But the main celebration is a big beer and food festival along the Tisza River, featuring lots of craft breweries, as well as booth selling Hungarian wines and palinka (the traditional fruit brandy);  food of all types, ranging from Hungarian specialties to hot dogs and even “Texas Barbecue”; rides for the kids; some craft booths; and live music.

Festival, Szeged, 8/20/15

On the holiday I headed over for food and a beer or two, and the fireworks. I almost immediately saw a beer booth that had an IPA. What, an IPA here in Hungary?  I had to check that out. The friendly woman and man working there rustled me up said IPA, and it was quite nice–more of an English IPA than the American IPA I prefer, but nice just the same. The brewery, whose name I unfortunately do not recall, is near Budapest. Thus fortified with beer, I set off to find food. Such an abundance of foods, some mystifying (big tubular rolls that looked like some sort of pastry being grillled on a rotisserie?), others seeming out of place (Texas barbecue?), lots of sausage, salami, hamburgers, etc. I decided to try a lángos, which is a fried potato flour dough base on which they put toppings, generally including sour cream, onions (red and scallions), and your choice of others. I chose one that had salami (of course), cheese, and I think it also had tomatoes or peppers. It was sort of the Hungarian version of the Navajo taco. It was huge and quite tasty; I couldn’t finish it. (One thing I have found about eating out in Hungary is that portion sizes tend to be huge, as in American style huge.)  For more on lángos you can check out the recent New York Times piece.

After such a feast, I was ready for another beer, and this time I found yet another IPA brewed by Zips Brewery. This one was hoppier and quite tasty. Ah, but there were still a couple of hours until the fireworks, so I listened to the music for awhile, then went for a walk around the area, checking out the wonderful National Theater and the lovely Hungarian Secessionist Deutsch Palace, with its blue ceramic folk art-inspired tulips, hearts, and other ornaments on the facade.

Deutsch Palace
Deutsch Palace

I also saw the spirit of the river, a statue of a woman representing the Tisza, along the bank. Then it was back to the festival for the fireworks show and one more beer, this time a Hungarian lager; I’m not an American lager fan, but the ones here are terrific!

Statue of River Tisza
Statue of River Tisza

And oh, the fireworks. In the U.S. they tend to parcel them out one by one, with oohs and aahs at each. In Hungary they send up 10 and more at a time–some high, some low, different types. And they keep sending them up this way for about 15 minutes. It was fantastic!

Concluding thoughts? The festival was much like the many festivals held throughout the U.S.–food booths, rides, craft booths, music, groups of teenagers hanging out, children running around, and families strolling. What struck me as most different: the fireworks, as already mentioned, and the multiple booths selling alcohol, which you could walk around the whole festival drinking. No need to go to a restricted area to have a beer. And yes, I did go back a couple more times over the weekend for another beer or two, more music, and I even tried the “Texas Barbecue,” where the speakers play Johnny Cash and they have a smoker and sell ribs, pulled pork, beef, chicken, sausage, etc. I tried the pulled pork and they even served it North Carolina style (topped with coleslaw, add your own sauce if you like); it was pretty darn good, actually. And the sandwich was sold to me by a young woman who, it turns out, had spent three months working at a camp in the Adirondacks, so we chatted about her experiences in New York. And that was my first Szeged festival. The next one is less than two weeks away. I can hardly wait!


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6 responses to “Szent István has a holiday”

  1. Carol Avatar
    Carol

    Wow- sounds like lots of fun. I can hardly wait to come to Hungary in October! I can see I need to do a bit of practice with the pronunciation of Hungarian! Have fun and enjoy your meetings on Buda!

  2. Mary Beth Sievens Avatar
    Mary Beth Sievens

    Who knew I got married on Szent Istvan day? For some reason this makes me very happy! And I love the detail about his hand being paraded around – how very medieval – right, John Arnold?

  3. jacky S. Avatar
    jacky S.

    So glad you are keeping a blog making it possible to follow you along….The festival sounds like a great deal of fun, and globalist (if that can actually mean global food choices), and such a nice welcome for you! (They did have IPAs).
    I’m curious about those tulips – any chance they are a leftover from Ottoman times? And is the blue an Iznik blue or more of a Delft? I love the fact they are folk art, pretty good integration.
    Take care.

    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      Is Isnik blue sort of turquoise? The blue is somewhat turquoise, on the blue spectrum of turquoise. In terms of Ottoman connection, they may have brought tulips? And thus tulips worked into folk designs? Yeah, I like this building, although it needs some TLC. Some of the others are in better shape. I’ll post soon on the Art Nouveau.

  4. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Very interesting! I’m glad you were there in time for this national holiday.

    So does the Hungarian Secessionist Deutsch Palace have something to do with Germans? German in German is Deutsch.

    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      Yeah, I was wondering that too. It may have been built for a German or something. I haven’t seen anything yet that says why it is called this.

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