It is amazing how much our Hungarian chefs and pastry chefs have given and continue to give to the world. The apple strudel was one of the ones that became world famous and even Paris got to know it.
There are dishes that hundreds of years ago were prepared by a cook and housewife in the same way as they are now, and then put on the table for us. There's something mystical, something miraculous, that in today's hectic lifestyles we have managed to preserve a dish or a recipe. We cherish it, we promote it, we love it, and we even show it to our foreign guests and friends.
World Apple Strudel Day - 17 June.
What we know today as strudel was developed in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. As a result, it has a very high status as a dessert. Nothing proves this better than the fact that by the end of the 19th century, there was no holiday without strudel, and it was also noticed abroad. “Rétes Hongrois” - that's how it appeared on the menu of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, for which the high quality flour and the chefs were brought from Hungary.
We owe the apple strudel to the diary of a monk
In the 16th century, strudel consisted of only separate sheets, mostly made by housewives. They would bake 10-12 sheets at a time, break them into smaller or larger pieces, sprinkle them with icing sugar and serve them. The filling and the rolling up came in the 17th century, mostly to the Habsburgs. You can find a longer description of all this in the Vienna City Library. This was followed by the 19th century, when strudel-making, previously known only in royal and noble circles, was common in peasant kitchens. The wheat, and thus the flour, was much more productive, and its high gluten content was excellent for making a real, fine, thin strudel. In peasant kitchens, too, it was mostly made for christenings, weddings and large celebrations. The strudel recipe was discovered in 1975 by the Piarist monk Kristóf Simai. Simai was a priest in Selmecbánya and wrote down the recipe for a strudel with sour cream, then filled with rice, cottage cheese, apples and poppy seeds. The most popular of these was the apple and malt spread, which became the most popular worldwide.
Companions of the apple strudel in the world
Different countries with different strudel variations when we travel and gastronomy. The Czech, Polish, Slovak and Slovenian nations use the words štrudl, štrudelj, and most of them are apple-cinnamon, cabbage and cottage cheese, but you can also taste meat, spinach and beetroot. Phyllo in Greek means a very thinly stretched pastry. Turkish baklava is made from the same dough with lots of honey and crushed seeds. In Serbian, gibanica is stuffed with cheese and cottage cheese, similar to burek in Croatia. So, the pastry is very universal, but the main thing is to have a lot of filling and a little crunchy pastry.
Is it a crime if we don't serve the apple pie?
Not at all. Stretching strudel is a beautiful and noble task, but it is so time-consuming and so demanding that very few housewives have time for it these days. Women have jobs, households, children to look after and grandmothers don't always make strudel. There are several solutions to this problem, but we have to eat them. You can also buy the ready-made dough and fill it. The secret is to grease and oil every part of it very well. But when you need an even simpler solution, you can make a ready-made strudels for the end of your Sunday lunch. Success is guaranteed.#
