On Food

Many of you, I am certain, have spent significant portions of your day worrying about my food situation here in Hungary. I am, it must be noted, a fairly "selective" eater. One observer once noted that my four food groups are cheese pizza, potatoes, pretzels and kool-aid.

Keenly aware of the issue, I set out to Hungary intent on eating whatever was put in front of me. This plan would work well, I reasoned, as I didn’t understand the language that the menu was written in anyways.

Luckily, so far, so good. I'm actually allowed to eat three meals a day in the school cafeteria. One hundred kids live in dormitories during the week, I eat right alongside them. For your amusement, I'd like to offer the culinary delights of my week so far:

Monday Breakfast – Rolls. With butter and a tomato slice. And water.

Monday Lunch – A chicken soup with really fat noodles. Spaghetti noodles, served cold, topped with brown-sugar-looking-substance that tastes more like ground-up brown rice. Not good. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Monday Supper – (Doesn’t count…I ate reheated spaghetti at home.)

Tuesday Breakfast – Giant slice of bread. Served with Jam. And tea.

Tuesday Lunch – Pork (maybe?) soup. Served with something that looked vaguely like a pretzel, except it tasted like a roll. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Tuesday Supper – Almost-Spanish rice, but it would have needed a little bit more “Spanish” to make it taste good. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Wednesday Breakfast – Roll. And hot chocolate.

Wednesday Lunch – Chicken soup, this time with balls of couscous-like grains balled into mushy dumplings. A small chunk of beef, swimming in a bowl of warm apple sauce. Served with a roll that tasted like an upside-down pretzel. Served with giant sweet pickle.

Wednesday Supper – I promise you this is true…Noodles and Beef! Honest to goodness egg noodles topped with a delicious sauce of beef chunks. It was glorious. This was even better than the time I drove past a Noodles and Beef truck on the way to Colorado. Served with a giant pickle.

Thursday Breakfast – An extra-large slice of bread. And butter.

Thursday Lunch – Chicken broth, with a handful of croutons. Plate full of roasted potatoes, with a chunk of chicken sitting on top of it. Served with another damn giant sweet pickle. They are not good. I do not eat them at Thanksgiving. I do not eat them any time of year. They are gross.

As you can see, not too bad. The assistant headmaster, the German-meister Agi, has set two goals for me this year. The first is that I take, and pass, the 12th grade German examination required to leave school. I suppose that’s a good goal for a German teacher. Her second goal is that I gain 10 kilos.