If I raided the cabinets of any assortment of houses, I would wager on finding at least six ingredients most houses have in common: Flour, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt.
The savvy homemaker knows having these ingredients on hand means endless possibilities in the kitchen. The faithful Hungarian knows they can create palacsinta, a crepe so central to Hungarian culture. Or at least so central to the Hungarian culture beating through this little church in Birmingham, East Toledo where I found myself one Thursday evening, whisking through batches and batches of dough.
Despite my own Hungarian background and an obscene amount of palacsinta enjoyed over the course of my life, this is my first time making the delicacy.
Not only am I a novice at baking palacsinta, but also festival preparation in general. Every August, the Birmingham neighborhood hosts The Ethnic Festival. Because of the Hungarian roots of the church I attend, it plays an important role in the festival by hosting hungarian bands and dancers, selling Hungarian embroidered quilts, and - most importantly- serving Hungarian food. Kolbasz, paprikas, hunky turkey, stuffed cabbage, nut roles, kolaches, and of course, palascinta.
The money made off of food sales during the festival funds the church. Its continuity rests on the shoulders of the kitchen and the volunteers who fill it, sacrificing weeks upon weeks for festival preparation.
My parents are two of those loyal helpers, volunteering their time to make kolbasz once every few months, making hungarian cookies, and serving church dinners after Sunday services.
It’s not that my parents necessarily complain about all the festival preparations, but they certainly let it be known to me and my siblings how much time and work they spend at the church leading up to event. So when they mentioned they were heading to the church one evening to make palacsinta for the festival, curiosity coupled with guilt persuaded me to join.
To keep the 800-plus crepes uniform in taste, we settle on using one recipe labeled Betsy's Recipe. The close-knitness of this church deems last names inessential. We all know Betsy, Barb, Doug, Tom etc., etc. The no-last-name policy of this church makes it feel more like a family rather than a congregation.
The authenticity of this recipe is debatable - everyone in the kitchen thinks it calls for too much of this, too little of that. But when we talk about recipes how strictly can we define authenticity?
After all, these crepes might profess themselves as Hungarian, but more accurately they are the result of mixing cultures.
The earliest Hungarians grew grains producing flour which I use for the dough. When the Turks occupied Hungary, they introduced nuts and tropical fruits, the common fillings of palascinta. And when Austria reigned, sweet pastries (like these crepes) flourished.
Is palacsinta the result of decades of unrest and the collisions of these cultures? Maybe or maybe not. However, I like considering that something so sweet could come from something decidedly less so.
Making the dough, I felt an unexpected sense of pressure. People ranging from native Hungarians to the self-described “foodie” will be tasting my palacsinta. In my intensity and desire for perfection, I lose myself in the dough. It absorbs me as I do my best to remain efficient and focused. I am calculated and clinical.
Alas, my motives for working so diligently are not entirely altruistic; I’m keenly aware that the harder we all work, the sooner we all leave. Yolk splashes and stains my shirt as I whisk through twelve eggs before adding the dry ingredients. My fingers become sticky as a result of the kitchen heat and gooey mixture. My back aches and I note that this is no task for the weak or the lazy.
Taking a break to roll my neck and shoulders, I glance around the kitchen at the other volunteers. If my amateur bakingskills did not already mark me as an outsider, then my intensity does.
Their relaxed, easy, and unconcerned nature pulls me from my dough-induced trance. A bubble separates me from the rest of the volunteers as our attitudes towards the work creates opposing energies.
There is, apparently, one direction not listed in the recipe that everyone in the kitchen appears to agree on: hands that work half as fast and mouths that talk twice as much.
They chat about grandkids and vacations. They eat chocolate chip cookies and pizza. They laugh about past festival memories. They hold no sense of urgency. This does not look like the hard work my parents described.
I intruded on their flow with my vehemence for making palacsinta as efficiently as possible, piercing the relaxed nature of this tradition. I am an outsider fighting their rhythm.
The objective of tonight’s labor is not making palacsinta. Rather, making the palacsinta together in a hot and stuffy kitchen in the middle of a work-week serves as the foundation supporting the closeness of this no-last-name-needed church.
I don’t know the final tally of palacsinta sold during the festival. I also know now that it does not really matter. Ostensibly, profits determine the success of our palacsinta efforts. But the success is actually determined weeks before the festival. Inside that kitchen where memories are made over mixing bowls and hot stoves.
