Strawberries, Cherries and Rasperries

Last week I visited my grandparents in Szentendre, its a bit out of town - a small village near the Danube. It's strawberry season right now, or about to finish, so we had loads of strawberries the last 3 weeks in all variations and they were sold at every street corner. Since about last week, the cherries are good to eat, in fact they are superdelicious and everyone sells cherries on the streets now(small bags of collected cherries from the trees in the home garden).

The trees are heavily loaded and on public transport people are carrying basket and buckets filled with delicious cheeries. I am loving it!

(Right: A pic of my grandparents cherry collection of a day, strawberry jam and the famous Hungarian cherry soup which is eaten cold and very refreshing in hot summers.)

Hungarian gardens are full of fruits and vegetables even in the city. Many families make their own wine and Palinka (a strong grappa like spirit in all fruit types)...Since most of Hungarian's fruit of veggie consumption comes from their own or other local place, it also strongly influences what is eaten at which point of time in what amounts. So after our lovely lunch and the cherry soup in my grandparents garden, we had a break and went to collect some raspberries for our dessert. We had each a bowl of fresh raspberries with powder sugar and cream - sooo delicious!

My grandfaher said, that each fruit has its particular season so you always have one thing at a time, eating strawberries in May, then raspberries and then cherries in June/July. This year there was a very hot spring though and it still is unusually hot with up to 35-38 degrees at some days. People around here are flooded with ripe fruits of all kinds ready to be consumed or to be prepared into jams, Palinkas and other delicious things.

I miss the tradition of buying fresh fruits from the streets and the neighbour hood. Hopefully Hungary will keep this part of its culture and not change to buying their fruits and veggies from large super market chains where you can get all fruits throughout the entire year from far away lands for tripple the price and half the taste!