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In Praise of
Kǖrtӧs Kalácsa
Kǖrtӧs Kalácsa
To understand any culture's cuisine, as far as I am concerned, ignore the fancy restaurants boasting "regional specialties" and head straight for the seediest looking street food you can find. It's worth the potential risk to one's g.i. system, this eating "what the people eat." When in Bucharest, etc....
Thus, wandering through the Obor market for the first time last Saturday, just one espresso into the morning (and therefore susceptible to impulse eating), I stumbled upon a bizarre looking pastry: something like a honey-colored construction cone, cut into spiraling ribbons, and rolled in a kind of crunchy sugar crumble.
And, yes, I tried one. And I nearly had to sit down right there in the street (where gypsy women were hawking kitchen towels and men were trying to sell cell phones, and others were just walking by without knowing that they were marching past a holy Romanian donut stand…) and cry. Since I didn't have the guts for that, I just stood there in reverential silence and smiled stupidly, covered in sugar.
Obviously, I had to investigate how such a sacred snack is concocted. First a loose pastry dough is wrapped around a kind of spindle on the end of a long wooden pole, which is then spun over hot coals until it toasts a dark brown color. Then the screaming hot dough is showered in the crunchy bits, which adhere immediately. From there they are moved to cooling racks until they are bagged for the pleasure of public consumption.
Today, I marched the remainder of the Bacchae toward the kǖrtӧs at Obor and from that moment on we attempted to concentrate on buying produce, when really we were completely lost in Romanian donut reveries for which there is only one known cure: more kǖrtӧs.
And, yes, I tried one. And I nearly had to sit down right there in the street (where gypsy women were hawking kitchen towels and men were trying to sell cell phones, and others were just walking by without knowing that they were marching past a holy Romanian donut stand…) and cry. Since I didn't have the guts for that, I just stood there in reverential silence and smiled stupidly, covered in sugar.
Obviously, I had to investigate how such a sacred snack is concocted. First a loose pastry dough is wrapped around a kind of spindle on the end of a long wooden pole, which is then spun over hot coals until it toasts a dark brown color. Then the screaming hot dough is showered in the crunchy bits, which adhere immediately. From there they are moved to cooling racks until they are bagged for the pleasure of public consumption.
Today, I marched the remainder of the Bacchae toward the kǖrtӧs at Obor and from that moment on we attempted to concentrate on buying produce, when really we were completely lost in Romanian donut reveries for which there is only one known cure: more kǖrtӧs.
Smittenly,
Christopher
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