For immediate releaseJanuary 31, 2013

Contact: Pete Sickman-Garnerpgarner@zingermans.com, 734.904.0644

Zingerman’s Bakehouse Turns to Hungary For Inspiration

As we move into 2013, visitor’s to Zingerman’s Bakehouse might be forgiven if they think they’ve been transported to a cukraszda in Budapest. Tucked among the traditionally baked breads, pastries and cakes that have been Zing-erman’s Bakehouse staples for 20 years, you’ll find such seemingly exotic foods as Flodni, Rigó Jancsi, and Pogácsa.

Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo, the managing partners of Zingerman’s Bakehouse, began the exploration of Hungarian foodways three years ago. Looking for new avenues to expand their baking horizons, they made a plan to investigate the baking traditions of countries that might not be familiar to an American audience. “In choosing a baking tradition, we needed a place with a long, deep history of really great food but one that maybe doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Hungary definitely fit that bill.”

After an extensive research trip to Hungary in the Fall of 2011 Amy, Frank and co-founder of Zingerman’s Com-munity of Businesses Ari Weinzweig were convinced that their choice to learn about Hungarian foodways was an excellent one.

What followed were a series of trips over the next year, the most recent being to Transylvania in October 2012. After each trip, they delved into history and cookbooks and drew upon what they’d learned on their travels in order to recreate for Zingerman’s guests the amazing foods they found across Hungary. In 2011, the Bakehouse de-buted the Rigó Jancsi and two other tortes followed from there. Today, as many as 15 traditional Hungarian foods might grace the Bakehouse shelves on any given day, from traditional soups to breads flavored with paprika, to retés (strudels) and many desserts. They are o!ering Hungarian tastings as well as teaching people how to make traditional Hungarian foods in their hands-on teaching bakery, BAKE! This fall they’ve teamed up with the folks at Zingerman’s Food Tours to o!er guided travel in October 2013 to the source of Hungarian food.

When asked where they’ll go from here, Amy and Frank replied that they are considering an annual trip to Hungary to study in-depth. They also intend to focus on particular areas of Hungarian cuisine like Jewish-Hungarian food, the cuisine of the Roma, home cooking, and traditional Hungarian recipes transformed by modern chefs. They also note that they are beginning to plan visits to Ann Arbor from renown Hungarian bakers, chefs and artisanal food producers.

For more information about Hungarian foods at Zingerman’s Bakehouse or to receive updates or schedule inter-views, please contact Pete Sickman-Garner, Marketing Manager, at pgarner@zingermans.com or 734.904.0644.

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Zingerman’s Bakehouse was founded in 1992 when Zingerman’s Delicatessen founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw decided they could bake better bread for their Deli sandwiches than they could buy locally, and they teamed up with old friend Frank Carollo to create the second of eight businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. The Bakehouse added a pastry department in 1994 and in 2000 former pastry manager Amy Ember-ling joined Frank as co-managing partner. Today the Bakehouse is recognized as one of the finest bakeries in the country and sells bread and pastries at all Zingerman’s locations (including via mail at www.zingermans.com) and at retail locations throughout Michigan.

Esterházy TortaDuring his life, Paul III Anton, Prince Esterházy was perhaps the richest man in all of Eu-rope, not actually holding the title of King. Maybe this is why the cake named after him is so rich and luxurious to eat. Our version of this famous torta has layers of toasted walnut cake filled with a magnificent mixture of vanilla bean pastry cream, fresh whipped cream and more toasted walnuts, dec-orated with vanilla and dark chocolate poured fondant in a distinctive design used specifi-cally for Esterházy cakes.

Rigó Jancsi[pronounced ree-go yon-chee]

A traditional Hungarian co!ee-house torte named after Rigó Jancsi (1858-1927), a famous Hungarian violinist who se-duced and married Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay and former Detroit native. It’s two light layers of chocolate sponge cake filled with choco-late rum whipped cream and iced with apricot glaze and dark chocolate ganache.

Dobos Torta[pronounced doh-bosh]

This traditional Hungarian cof-feehouse torte was created in 1887 by well known chef and confectioner József C. Dobos (1847–1924). It’s five thin lay-ers of vanilla sponge cake and dark chocolate butter cream, all topped with pieces of crispy dark caramel. Taste one of Hungary’s most famous tortas!

Hungarian  Foods  

Made  at

anN ArboR, MI

PogácsA[pronounced poh-gotcha]

The all purpose roll of Hungary. They are a cross between what we know as a scone and a biscuit which can be eaten for breakfast, as a snack, part of an appetizer with korozott (Hungarian liptauer), or with soup. Ours are rich and full of flavor, made with Zingerman’s Creamery farm cheese, sweet butter, and fresh eggs. Also available gar-nished with a mixture of seeds (poppy, sesame and cara-way seeds).

Almond Kifli CookiesAn irresistible Hungarian treat. The name kifli origi-nally referred to the cres-cent shape and to savory breads in this shape (it was the precursor to the croissant!). It is available in many parts of Europe by di!erent names. This particular cookie is very popular in Hungary and Austria today. Ours are made with ground almonds and real vanilla bean. They’re addictive, so watch out!

Sweet Rétesek (aka strudel)To make our rétes (ray-tesh), we take our own fresh dough and carefully hand-stretch it over an 8 ft. table until it’s thin enough to see through. Then it’s folded and layered with melted butter and a sprinkle of cake crumbs, wrapped around fresh fillings, and baked un-til golden brown. Our rétesek (ray-te-shek) serve eight. We’re currently o!ering apricot preserves with vanilla bean cream cheese.

Savory Rétesek (aka strudel)To make our rétes (ray-tesh), we take our own fresh dough and carefully hand-stretch it over an 8 ft. table until it’s thin enough to see through. Then it’s folded and layered with melted butter and a sprinkle of bread crumbs, wrapped around fresh fillings, and baked until golden brown. Our savory rétesek (ray-te-shek) serve eight. Try our traditional Hungarian flavors: cabbage with goose fat or potato with bacon.

FlodniThe word flodni (fluden in Yid-dish) refers to what is mostly a forgotten category of Euro-pean desserts which were lay-ered and filled. It’s also the name of a Hungarian specialty, as well as a traditional Jewish holiday pastry, which is just as it should be, multiple layers with several di!erent fillings. We’re really enjoying the buttery pas-try layered with three distinct fillings: honey poppy seed, raisin walnut and cinnamon apple.

Lunch  specials  at    

the  Bakehouse

Amy’s Hungarian TributeWe couldn’t pack more flavor in this sandwich if we tried. Our new soft pretzel bun with Hungarian cured bacon and smoked pork loin, liptauer cheese spread, pickled Hungarian peppers, shaved onion and whole grain mus-tard. Available Mon-Sat.

SoupsGabor’s Bean & Ham and Katalin’s Kohlrabi on Tuesdays

Gulyás (gool-yosh) on Wednesdays.

Lángos (lon-gohsh)

A savory fried bread and popular Hungarian street food. Ours is brushed with garlic and sour cream, sprin-kled with fresh dill, topped with Hickory Smoked Ham, Marieke 1-year Gouda cheese, and a dusting of paprika! Available on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM.

Barches - Hungarian ChalLah breadBarches (bar-kess) is a traditional Hungarian bread like challah, but made with milk. Our version is mixed with Hungarian sweet paprika giving it a warm orange color and a faint spice note that builds on your tongue as you eat it. It’s really enjoyable all by itself or try it alongside a hearty soup or stew. It could add a great layer of flavor to your sandwich creations as well.

Available as an occasional “special bake”.

Give us a call and reserve your special loaves. Next bake:

January 25th & 26th, 2013

April 5th & 6th, 2013

June 28th & 29th, 2013 anN ArboR, MI

Hungarian Coffeehouse TortesIn the late 1800s Hungary enjoyed a co!eehouse culture of delicious fancy tortes and great co!ee. Philosophers, artists, musicians and politicians gathered in co!ee-houses to share ideas and camaraderie while eating cake! We’ll teach you to make two of the classics. Rigo Jancsi -- a chocolate rum sponge cake filled with chocolate whipped cream, iced with chocolate ganache and Esterhazy Cake – walnut meringue layers with vanilla cream icing. It’s a classic sold at all traditional Hungarian bakeries. Join us for some Hungarian flavor.

Espresso TortaKnown in Hungary as kardinális szelet, this classic dessert is sure to please the most discriminating pastry and co!ee lov-er and makes an impressive showing at dinner parties. This pastry is built of three layers of crisp meringue and sponge cake separated by whipped cream and Creme Fraiche that is intensely infused with espresso couleur, a syrupy extract of deeply caramelized sugar and freshly made espresso. You’ll make every component of the cardinal slice in this hands on class. The espresso couleur is guaranteed to become any co!ee addict’s favorite pantry staple!

Bakehouse Turns 20! What’s next?Come celebrate with us! What would Frank and Amy, Bakehouse partners, want to do on our birthday other than bake? Join them to celebrate 20 years of baking at this one time only class. During the evening they’ll tell stories from our past and teach you several new Hungar-ian recipes which we hope to be a part of our future. In this class you’ll learn: pogácsa, the quintessential Hungar-ian roll which is a cross between a biscuit and a scone and flavored with goose or pork cracklins’, gulyás, a beef and vegetable soup made the traditional Hungarian way and almond kifli, an irresistible cookie. You’ll leave class with an authentic Hungarian meal to serve at home. Just add the Hungarian folk music.

Noodling about StrudellingLearn to make traditional strudel, also known as rétes in Hungary, at home! Remember when you were little and the gym teacher pulled out a compact plastic bundle and magically unfurled it into a huge parachute that the whole class could fit under? Well, you’ll have that experience all over again when we take a grapefruit size piece of strudel dough and stretch it out to cover a 24 sq. ft. table. We’ll make sweet and savory fillings to fill your dough. This is just about the most fun you can have making food.

Taste of Hungary with Amy & FrankFor more than a year now, many of us at the Bakehouse have been eating and baking our way through the rich cul-ture and history of Hungarian food. We’re so excited to share it with you. Join us to find out how this fascinating mix of traditions came to be, what food Hungary is most known for and why we became interested in it in the first place. You’ll taste many of the Hungarian specialties made right here at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, led by Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo, co-managing partners, bakers and Hun-garian travelers. This class is a presentation and tasting.

Hungarian  Baking  

Classes  at   Our Hands On Teaching Bakery

We’ve been blown away by the amazing artisanal food of Hungary and by the warm welcome of its people, and we want to share them with you! Hungary has an incredibly rich and varied food tradition reaching back at least 1500 years, including an Eastern European Jewish influence. From the regional cheeses, wines, cured meats, and bountiful pro-duce, to the incredible breads, pastries, and elegant multi-layered tortas, Hungary has it all. Travel with us to Hungary and find out how much more there is to Hungarian food than its excellent paprika!

T r a v e l w i t h Z i n g e r m a n ’ s t o

Hungarian Food Tour

Oct. 15-25, 2013

Hungarian Food Tour

At the Bakehouse we’re studying Hungarian foodways, which include a rich collection of Jewish recipes. Jewish communities have existed in Hungary since at least the 1100s (which we know from written court records). Jews were treated relatively better in Hungary than in many other European countries (having even been granted full rights of citi-zenry) until World War II when they were the last Eastern European Jews to be targeted by the Nazi extermination policy. Since that cam-paign came nearer the end of the war a greater number of people sur-vived and returned to Hungary where they appeared to live as non-Jews during communist rule.

In the twenty-some years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Jewish community in Hungary has become more visible and vibrant. Budapest currently has the largest and most active Jewish community in East-ern Europe. The result of 900 years of Jewish/Magyar co-existence is a surprising appearance of Jewish foods as standards in the Hungarian repertoire–latkes, matzo ball soup and cholent to name three–even called by their Yiddish names! Discovering all of this has certainly been eye-opening.

This Magyar tale is about our acquaintance with the traditional Hun-garian and Jewish bean dish called sólet in Hungarian and cholent in Yiddish. It is traditionally simmered overnight for 12 hours or more and eaten for lunch on the Sabbath to conform with Jewish laws that pro-hibit cooking on that day. The pot is brought to boil on Friday before the Sabbath begins and placed in a slow oven until the following day. There are many variations of the dish but the basic ingredients of cho-lent are meat, beans and barley. It’s not dissimilar in style of cooking from the famous French dish cassoulet or American baked beans.

This spring a number of us from the bakery visited Budapest to con-tinue our studies of Hungarian foodways. Sólet was on our itinerary. Finally I could have first hand experience of this classic dish. No one else on the trip had any prior knowledge of sólet or any personal con-nection to it but somehow it became the hit of the trip. Who would’ve thought? We ate it in three different venues - only one considered a Jewish restaurant - and thoroughly enjoyed them. The sólet at Kadar’s restaurant was considered the best but more about that later. Not only did sólet grab the group’s tastebuds’ attention, but it was the first Hun-garian food made by any of us upon our return. Additionally, the most prized souvenir from the trip is a well used ceramic cholent pot which I carried back with the reverence and care usually reserved for a long lost family bible or art treasure. Since we are now all sólet enthusiasts we decided that the cherished pot would reside at the bakery to be shared by all of us when the mood for cholent hit.

Our first sólet encounter was at Kadar’s in Budapest, which opened in the 1950s and is famous for its solet - although it serves many other things and in no way is known as a Jewish restaurant. Kadar is a Hun-garian surname. The restaurant is tiny. It’s crammed, and it’s plain. The owner, tall, broad and imposing, is taking orders and bringing out the food. It’s a down to business experience. Our server was a middle-aged

woman who’d been there longer than the owner, close to 30 years, and claimed to be better than him at making the sólet.

Soon after we ordered, the sólet started arriving. Three separate plates came each with beans and one with a baked egg, one with roast goose and one with a pork chop! Yes, sólet with pork. There were many versions of different pork cuts with sólet on the menu, a true inter-mixing of cuisines. The beans and barley were moist and moderately seasoned—quite satisfying! The group seemed excited about this first encounter. Nina Huey (née Plasencia) loved the dish, claiming that it spoke to her Hispanic beans and pork heritage.

Our next sólet encounter came at Fülemüle, a restaurant known for serving Jewish dishes as well as Hungarian standards. It is owned by András Singer, a Jewish restaurateur committed to serving delicious and refined food. Nina, so taken with her first taste of sólet, ordered the Kind David sólet, which came with roast goose, smoked meat and baked eggs. It was big enough for at least three people and was quite delicious, especially the smoked meat. The beans and barely were a bit less moist however. We were getting a hint that moisture was going to be one of the keys to the sólet’s success. You might be wondering about all of the goose being served. It’s very prevalent in Hungarian cuisine, including foie gras and Jews were historically the goose farmers of the country.

Our final encounter with sólet was at the family owned Thummerer Winery, northeast of Budapest. Sólet in a winery? You bet. We came to Thummerer to cook, bake and taste wine for the day with the chef An-drás and his wife Éva, the daughter of the winery founder. The dynamic and talented pair play a very important role in running the winery now. We were using a wood-burning oven to roast a goose, and then the next dish András demonstrated for us was sólet with his own cured pork belly. Yes, once again sólet and pork! It became clear that his as-sociations with sólet had absolutely no Jewish connections. This sólet was lighter in the paprika, heavier on the salt (a result of the cured ba-con) and wetter than Kadar’s, once again pointing out to us that achiev-ing the perfect consistency would be something we’d have to work on.

So Kadar’s sólet turned out to be the group’s favorite version. Did it have the advantage of being the first we tasted? Perhaps…but perhaps it was years of experience that lead to a delicious version. We’ll have to go back and taste everyone’s again.

What now? Rumor has it that my sólet education can continue right here in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor food blogger Mary Bilyeu let me know that a local temple does a cholent Kiddush every January. I’ll be there to compare, contrast and learn.

Eating and writing about sólet has its limits though. I want to move into hands-on practice. I’ve got the red beans, a bag of barley, paprika I carried back from Budapest and the blessed sólet pot. With a trip to Zingerman’s Delicatessen to buy a nice piece of smoked meat I’ll be ready to make my fist sólet. How exciting!

magyar food tales

GetTing  Acquainted  with  Sólet  by Zingerman’s Bakehouse Managing Partner Amy Emberling

Food connects us across time and cultures in surprising ways. At the Bakehouse we’ve been learning about Hungarian foods over the past year, including a remarkably rich collection of Hungarian Jewish dishes. On a recent trip to Budapest to learn more, I was surprised to find myself reminded of the food my Jewish grand-mother made in New York; latkes, matzo ball soup, and cholent are standard on Hungarian menus, even with their Yiddish names. The tables were also set with the standard Eastern European accompaniments of pickles and seltzer water, which were part of my childhood New York meals. It was an unexpected and welcome homecoming for me.

Jews have lived in Hungary for at least 900 years with long periods of peace and prosperity. They were protected by many kings and governments and eventually were given full citizenship. World War II brought the same demise to Hungarian Jews as it did other European Jews albeit much later in the war since Hungary was an ally of Germany and maintained its independence until the spring of 1944. A number of Holocaust survivors returned to Hungary only to repress their religious beliefs under Communism. In the twenty-some years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, the community has become more visible and vibrant—Budapest has the largest and most active Jewish community in Eastern Europe.

In Budapest, there are several restaurants that specialize in Jewish food– Fulemule and Rosenstein’s are perhaps the most famous. Each offers delicious versions of cholent, matzo ball soup, latkes and Hungarian Jewish specialties, which often feature goose. There are Jewish bakeries. Their most distinctive offering is a des-sert called Flodni. It has layers of walnuts, poppy and apple fillings separated by a flaky pastry like a pie crust. A rabbi’s daughter, Rachel Raj, owns a traditional bakery serving flodni as well as a modern cake decorating business. There’s even a restaurant, not at all considered a Jewish restaurant, famous for its cholent (solet in Hungarian) called Kadar’s. My shock at this restaurant is that cholent, which I mistakenly thought was quintessentially Jewish, is served with everything from goose legs to pork chops! I’ll admit that it was delicious in its many versions. The intermingling of Jewish and Hungarian cuisines is very common.

There’s lots of Jewish food to enjoy in Budapest but there’s also a good deal of Jewish culture and history. In the Jewish quarter it’s possible to tour the beautiful Dohany Synagogue, which according

to our guide has the second-largest seating capacity of any syna-gogue in the world, 3500. At the synagogue there’s a small museum, a memorial to those who died of starvation on its premises during WW II and a kosher restaurant nearby. On our first trip there was even a Jewish music festival being held.

We’re making plans to bring some of these experiences back to Ann Arbor. For the Jewish high holidays, we’ll be making flodni. We’re working on a Hungarian version of matzo ball soup. Mr. Rosenstein graciously shared his recipe with us. There are three distinctive Hungarians aspects to Hungarian matzo ball soup – it’s served in goose broth often with some goose meat; the matzo balls are coarser in their consistency and tend to be made with broken pieces of matzo rather than matzo meal; and they are flavored with fresh ginger root. Finally we are considering making cholent to have available on Saturdays at lunchtime. We’ll probably skip the pork but maybe not.

But back to the idea that food can connect us across time and across cultures in surprising ways. I had my unexpected home-coming in Budapest and now some of you are having yours in Ann Arbor. After walking into our bakery or delicatessen many of you have kindly shared your surprise and delight of being transported back to a place or time from your past. We have learned about your Hungarian ancestry, your favorite Hungarian foods and tradi-tions, your family history. Thank you sharing and for making this a culturally rich and valuable endeavor for all of us.

We have loved our visits to Hungary so much that we’re consider-ing leading a food tour there. If you’re interested in joining us, send us a note at bhserv@zingermans.com. When we set the dates of a trip, you’ll be the first to know!

Jewish  Dishes  on  the    

Hungarian  Table  by Zingerman’s Bakehouse Managing Partner Amy Emberling

A  Few  Thoughts  on  

Hungarian  Foodways

by Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig

As you’ll quickly be able to tell from the headline, I’ve got Hungary on my mind, and in my heart. What follows is just a taste, a glimpse, of an incred-ibly interesting cuisine, a complex culture and its engaging history. In the past few years I’ve learned a bit, but I feel like I still have about two life-times of learning to go. Sorry for the pun, but I’m hungry for Hungary. What follows are a few featured “courses” from my first year of study. And our future at Zingerman’s holds many flavorful Hungarian things to come.

There are a thousand ways to approach the complex world of Hungarian food. My entry was many years ago through the writing of George Lang and his 1971 classic, The Cuisine of Hungary. Even if I wasn’t yet as fascinated by the subject as I am today, it would have been hard not to take notice. “The subject of this book,” Lang begins, “is the cuisine and wines of a compara-tively little-known country which has had the misfortune that the little that is known about it is generally pseudo folklore with a lot of gypsies play-ing into the ears of contented tourists while they eat the red-hot ‘goulash.’” Lang’s intro had me hooked, and I’ve learned quite a lot about him since that time.

Back in the early 80’s, when we were just getting the Deli going, Lang was one of those people known to everyone, and who clearly had enormous positive influence on the culture of food and cooking in America. Like a basketball-playing kid who looked up to Michael Jordan, I admired George Lang. He was someone who seemed to have attained international success at a level that was almost unimaginable to me. I was intrigued, but as a shy 25-year-old just getting started in the food business, I wasn’t about to pick up the phone and call one of the most renowned of restaurant consultants. I wish I had.

Sadly, I waited too long. George Lang passed away last summer at the age of 86. My mistake. When we opened the Deli back in 1982, he was living in New York and was actively involved in running the classic Café des Artistes. He stayed active in the food world up until his death. And while I truly like to learn from everyone—eight-year-olds, world famous experts, and everyone in between—George Lang was the sort of man I really look up to. While many people are good at one or two things, Lang was multi-talented and multi-faceted; he lived a life that was loaded with travels, travails, achieve-ments and insights. He lived a long life and he clearly seems to have kept learning through it all. From what I can tell, George Lang always had his own way of doing things. He didn’t give in to the pressure to conform, and he brought a lot of pleasure to other people’s lives. Writer Rozanne Gold, who did meet Mr. Lang, said he was, “brilliant, urbane, cultured, a story-teller, clever. I believed he felt his role in daily life was to amuse and ignite the imagination of others.” She goes on. “George Lang emanated brilliance. Whimsy. A life of the mind and of the senses. He even invented a few of his own.” Like I said, he seems like my kind of guy. If he’d been a bit younger, perhaps we’d have connected and I’d have taken my first trip to Hungary with a list of tips that he’d emailed to me before leaving.

While I’d like to have entered the world of Hungarian food with Mr. Lang on my arm, I did so with his insight in hand. Like so many things in my life, I suppose my admiration and interest in his work and his life started with

a book (The Cuisine of Hungary), and it’s long been one of my favorites. If I had to move into an e"ciency apartment and could only take, say, seventy or eighty books with me, Lang’s would be one of the top picks on my list. Which is probably one of the highest quality compliments that I could pay, as the man had had over 3000 cookbooks in his personal collection.

Of course, there was a lot more to George Lang than his book. The man that I know as George Lang was actually born György Deutsch in 1924. He grew up in an academically oriented, Jewish-Hungarian, kosher-keeping home in the town of Skékesfehérvár, about 35 miles from Budapest. In 1944 the fam-ily was sent to labor camps by the Nazis, and his parents died in the camps. But György got out and made his way to the U.S in 1946, where he changed his name to George Lang. Given the literal meaning of the surname he’d been born with—“Deutsch” means “German”—it’s not that hard to see why he chose to change it to Lang, his mother’s maiden name. Here in the States, he went on to become one of the country’s great restaurateurs and wrote beautifully about Hungarian food, among other subjects. He helped open over 300 restaurants in nearly 30 countries. In 1992 he traveled back to Bu-dapest to renovate and restore Gundel, the Hungarian restaurant landmark that had fallen into disrepair. He was one of the real pioneers of the restau-rant world in the modern era.

George Lang’s legacy is food-oriented and very rooted in culture and tra-dition. Here’s what the Village Voice wrote about him following an inter-view a few years ago: “George Lang, at 83, seems to have lived several lives, many happy, and some incredibly di"cult. Over the course of an hour or so, Lang talked about being a child violin prodigy and eventually playing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. As a teenager, he was a 100-meter running champion. Later he escaped Hungary, where his entire family perished in the concentration camps. At 21, Lang came to New York and rented a bed in Hell’s Kitchen while working as a dishwasher, then later as a saucier at the Plaza and a manager at an Italian wedding factory on the Lower East Side. He is an impressive calligrapher, a former Fulbright Scholar in Italy, and a writer at Travel + Leisure; he ran the Four Seasons; and, of course, he revived the Café des Artistes and became the first international restaurant consultant. Oh, and last Christmas, he hung out with the pope. What did you do?”

I can only smile when I tell you that he, like me, started his food service work as a dishwasher. If I can take my work to the same sort of heights as George Lang, I’ll feel pretty satisfied. When asked what he would have at a theoretical last meal, George Lang gave a rather lengthy and detailed an-swer. Much of what he listed were dishes from his mother’s kitchen: fisher-man’s soup, stu!ed goose neck, sour cherry soup, layered cabbage, stu!ed peppers, plum dumplings, pancakes with apple meringue, and whipped-cream strudel. “And then,” he said, “I will have what it takes to get to an-other world.”

Lang’s speculative last meal is just a small bit of the country’s fascinating food and cooking, and you’ll know that just by picking up his book. The Cuisine of Hungary isn’t a quick read: It’s nearly 500 pages long and my old hardcover version probably weighs about a pound. Yet, as long as the book is, Lang wrote in his introduction that “Much of the fascinating material (I’ve researched) is too abstract or specialized, and with sadness I had to take out much more material than I left in the book.” That alone should give you some sense of how interesting and complex Hungarian cooking is. If a man with the insight and intellectual ability of George Lang was so fascinated with this food, you can assume that Hungarian cooking is no minor league cuisine.

You might reasonably be wondering, what drove my sudden interest in the food of such a faraway country? Well, like so many things here, it all started with a vision. A vision, as we define it, is written document that describes our desired future at a particular point in time. It’s not a few short sen-tences; rather it’s a detailed, emotionally engaging, prose description of the future of our dreams. A future that, once we finish writing the vision, we fully commit to attaining. Innovative business writer Joel A. Barker said, “Vi-sion without action is merely a dream; action without vision just passes the time; vision with action can change the world.”

(For more on the subject of vision, see Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1—it’s got four di!erent essays that detail our approach to visioning work and explain why we’re all so adamant that it’s a great way to work.)

At the time George Lang’s book was published in 1971 he was just a touch older than I am now, but he’d already had a lifetime’s worth of learning about the food and culture of his homeland. I, on the other hand, am still very new to it. I’m not Hungarian, I’d never even visited until last fall, and I’ve never really studied it with any degree of seriousness until the past few years. What I’ve written about here is just a small entrée into a very deep, very rich, and very complex world. My commitment is to continue my learning about Hungarian cooking, to study the culture and the cuisine, and to carry back what I learn to Zingerman’s. And all of this work stems from a vision.

The vision in question is the one we wrote collaboratively a few years ago for Zingerman’s Bakehouse. We (Bakehouse managing partners Frank Car-ollo and Amy Emberling, and my partner Paul Saginaw) came to the realiza-tion that we’d fulfilled the original long-term vision we’d had for the Bake-house, and that it was time to write a new one. As the Zingerman’s-wide vision year is 2020, we decided to bring the Bakehouse into that timeframe as well.

(The Bakehouse vision is four or five pages long, and if you’d like a copy, or a copy of the entire Zingerman’s 2020 vision, just email me at ari@zinger-mans.com and I’ll send it your way. )

As we were drafting the vision, we decided that one thing we wanted to include was that by the year 2020 we’d have developed a new area of baking specialty, something significant that we could include with the French, Ital-ian, American and Jewish baked goods for which we were already known. I’m not talking about running a few specials here and there; I mean an area of very serious specialty. Which means a serious amount of studying, a bunch of hard work, some traveling, extensive product testing and tasting, and talking and learning from others who know more than we do. After a good bit of discussion, and a brainstorm list that included the baking of a dozen di!erent countries and regions as possible options, the place we chose for our vision was Hungary. By the year 2020 we were going to be really good at both sweet and savory traditional Hungarian baked goods. Why Hungary? Hungarian baking (actually Hungarian cooking in general) is generally acknowledged to be among the finest in the world. The cuisine and the culture draw from a hugely diverse set of influences: Asia, Austria, Turkey, Germany, the Balkans, and Russia all come into play. Pork, poppy seeds, pastry, and paprika predominate, and I happen to really like all of them. We knew that if we chose to study Hungarian baking, we’d never be bored. The food, like the country, is very complex, very interesting, and of-ten surprising.

While I might have liked to take my first trip to Hungary with George Lang, I feel lucky to have connected with Carolyn and Gábor Bánfalvi, as they share his passion for Hungarian history, food, culture and cooking. Carolyn grew up in Washington, D.C.; Gábor is a Hungarian native. He and Carolyn met while working together on a cruise ship. They ended up getting married and then returning to Budapest to live and raise their children. Today, Carolyn writes about Hungarian cuisine while Gábor leads food and wine tours of the country, taking travelers to many of the places Carolyn covers on her blog, and in her book, Food Wine Budapest. Last fall, I had the pleasure of spending a week with Gábor who led Frank, Amy, and I, along with our good friend, great food writer and amazing cooking teacher, Molly Stevens, around Budapest and the Hungarian countryside. We had a fabulous time and Gábor and Carolyn were the perfect Magyar hosts.

In its modern state, Hungary is not a huge country. I’ll leave you to explore the country’s history on your own, but let’s just say there are many intrigu-ing questions about the origins of the Magyar tribes whose descendants we know today as modern Hungarians. As George Lang wrote, “If the Hungarian nation behaved well in the past 1,100 years, it is probably because it would have been useless for anybody to tell them, ‘Go back where you came from.’ Nobody knew where that was—the Hungarians themselves still argue about it.”

Hungary is about the size of Indiana, with a population of about 10,000,000 people. Its small size belies a nearly unbelievable complexity. Hungarian food combines passion and paradox, and brings together a wide range of di!erent influences melded into one marvelous, almost magical cuisine. Lest I doubt the veracity of that claim, all I really need to do is take a bite of the goose fat and cabbage strudel, or the Rigó Jancsi torte at the Bakehouse.

Here’s what Molly said when I told her I was going to start writing about our trip. “I find it hard to come up with anything concise to summarize my take on Hungarian cooking. Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me was the com-plexity of the cuisine, and the pride and enthusiasm around it. Beyond the enthusiasm of Gábor, I recall the determined pride of Mr. Hodi, the paprika maker we visited, stirring that big cauldron of brick-red fish soup, or the defiant dignity of Mr. Singer, the owner of Fulemule restaurant in Budapest, who very clearly loved his food and his family. I was struck by the pride of survival and of tradition—it’s a combination of newness and legacy that I’d never experienced. When I think of the food, I think of lecsó, of soups and stews, of pork and goose, of poppy seeds and pastry. I think of curious and wonderful things like ginger in matzo balls, “Transylvania Ham” (made from pork belly), and potato gnocchi for dessert caramelized with butter and honey and garnished with apples, poppy seeds and walnuts. Oh, and the endless array of pickles . . . love me those pickles.”

In fact, we all enjoyed our experience so much that we’re going back. Frank and Amy are taking a group of Bakehouse managers over this spring to con-tinue our learning. And we’ll all be returning this fall, this time focusing our learning on Transylvania (now in Romania, formerly part of Hungary, and boasting 3 million ethnic Hungarians). I think I might lug my copy of George Lang’s book along. While I know only a bit about him, I’m pretty confident that he’d very happy to see so many traditional Hungarian foods being made, respectfully and traditionally, in the middle of North America. When you taste some goose fat strudel, or appreciate a slice of Rigó Jancsi or Dobos Torta, or roast some Hungarian bacon on a stick . . . maybe you’ll do as I’ve started to and make a silent toast to Hungary, an amazing culture and cuisine.