HUNGARY: Four kilometres of sausages made with a record attendance at Hungarian sausage festival

One of Central Europe's largest sausage festival's attracted record numbers of visitors this year as more than 70,000 people enjoyed the various recipes of home-made sausages on Saturday (October 22). The festival was hosted by the southern Hungarian town of Bekescsaba where three hundred teams entered a kneading and filling competition. The festival venue was a hive of activity as competition rules required them to knead, mix, mince and fill 10 kilograms of meat within two hours. The basic recipe of the Hungarian sausage consists of pork meat, salt, paprika, cumin and garlic, but there are endless variations and old recipes according to regions and towns. Imre Varga and his team came to the festival from the eastern town of Debrecen. "The basic ingredients determine the quality of the Hungarian sausage, and the thousands years old tradition of the spices that are used as the special spices of the Carpathian Basin give the particular taste of the Hungarian sausage," he explained. Sausage is one of the most popular foods of central and eastern Europe. While in Hungary the famous red paprika spice is indispensable, in neighbouring Slovenia it is left out. The Slovenian team arrived from Sevnica to compete with their method of sausage making. As their team leader, Stane Krnc explained, "The main difference between the Slovenian and Hungarian sausage is that there is no red paprika in the Slovenian sausage and no cumin. The other big difference is that we stick together the pairs of sausages which is not a tradition in Hungary." Among the teams was one of Hungary's European Parliament members, Zita Gurmai, who is originally from Bekescsaba. She believes events like these are important because there is too much politics in daily life. "In Hungary public life is far too politicized and people yearn for love and peace. These events are really just about who makes better sausages, for this you need a good recipe, good hands to knead, a good team, and the girls are good so I am sure that I am here as an MEP in Bekescsaba as part of the winning team," she said. More than 4 kilometres of sausage was filled and made in the competition, most of them fried and eaten during the festival. And with plenty of 'palinka' brandy and wines available throughout the day, high spirits were assured for all.

ITN Source | October 29, 2005

Tags:. .october. .filling. .filled. .famous. .arrived