# {286.} Tarts

Tarts (lepény) are kneaded of flour, with the addition of salt and water, then cut into shapes of different size and baked so that the tart stays in one piece. The importance of tarts during the past centuries must have been significantly greater, yet certain kinds are still in existence today. In Hungary, a kind referred to in ethnographical literature as soft tart bread is widely spread. These were still made and consumed over the entire Hungarian linguistic region around the turn of the century.

Its material can be extremely varied, according to the locally predominant cereal type. This is why it is made from wheat and rye or barley. It is made of buckwheat in Western Transdanubia, but there are also certain kinds made of maize meal and potatoes. Salt is the most important ingredient on flavouring the tart-loaf, but in some regions pepper is also put into it, and in the more southerly areas it is sprinkled with paprika. Less frequently poppy seeds are also used, either kneaded into it or sprinkled on top. The tart, 20 to 30 cm in diameter, is shaped out of the finished dough and its thickness rarely exceeds 2 to 3 cm. Pretzels of varying size are also shaped out of the same dough. They are up to 15 to 20 cm in size in Western Transdanubia, while they are only 4 to 5 cm in the eastern part of the country. In certain villages there are specialists whose occupation is pretzel making. The pretzels are sold in neighbouring villages or at big fairs. Especially famous are the pretzels from Debrecen, purchased eagerly even today as presents from the fair. In the eastern half of the linguistic territory a small loaf was shaped out of dough, its height reaching to 6–7 cm, but its diameter not exceeding 15 cm. Similar loaves were baked in the Bodrogköz as a treat for the Christmas carollers.

The baking of flat tarts took place in different ways. One of the oldest procedures is to spread the dough on hot stones. Very often the flat stone in front of the fireplace served this purpose. Baking in embers, in ashes, survived for a long time in regions of open fireplaces and hearths. The great antiquity of this method of baking is proved by the tales in which the hero’s mother packs biscuits (pogácsa) baked in ashes for his big trip. In a large part of Transdanubia and in the Great Plain they baked the tart-loaf in the hearth.

Hard tart-loaf (kemény lepénykenyér) is made exclusively from wheat flour, and its diffusion is more limited and has been steadily decreasing for centuries. Its dough is prepared as for the soft tart-loaf, but is stretched knife-blade thin (3 to 4 mm) and baked in the hearth or on top of the cooking stove. It is rarely eaten directly but rather is broken up into small pieces and dunked for a moment into hot water. It belongs, in certain areas, among fasting foods.

One form of palacsinta (thin pancake) can also be listed in the above category–the kind that is mixed from flour, salt and water until quite thin and then poured on a red hot stone. Its more recent version is done in a frying pan and has milk and egg mixed into its mass.

Many different kinds of tarts were made of maize. Noteworthy among these is the málé (polenta), many varieties of which are known in the Carpathian Basin. In Debrecen maize meal was mixed in a large earthenware cooking pot and allowed to stand, to sweeten. They greased the bottom of a cake pan and poured the mush into it, smoothed {287.} it neatly, and then dribbled lard on top. It is generally baked in the oven, but in some regions it was put on a red hot slab of stone. If it did not get sweet enough during resting, then sugar, or earlier honey was mixed into the dough. Originally it may have been a bread supplement, but today it is eaten from time to time as a treat.

The round-shaped görhe (Tiszántúl) or, by its Transdanubian name prósza, kukoricapogácsa (maize biscuit), is made of similar mush. In some places in the Tiszántúl they also knead lard or oil into the dough, and perhaps made it tastier with some milk and sugar. It was mostly baked in the oven and was eaten instead of bread.

All the various kinds of tarts share one characteristic, namely that their dough is not leavened. This differentiates them from the outwardly similar-looking loaves made of leavened dough, mostly of bread dough.