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TIRGU MUREŞ<br />
44 WIZZ MAGAZINE // JUNE/JULY <strong>2011</strong><br />
A TALE OF<br />
TWO DISHES<br />
Romanian flavours and<br />
Hungarian spices have shaped<br />
this Transylvanian town’s<br />
history and culture<br />
Words Ada Mihai Photos Eliodor Moldovan<br />
ROMANIAN CHEF S¸TEFAN<br />
seizes the bubbling pot on<br />
the cooker, tosses into it<br />
a bowl of beans, acrobatically<br />
twists a smoke-dried bone<br />
in the air and flings that in<br />
too. In another part of town,<br />
Hungarian chef Laura chops a<br />
white onion and a red pepper<br />
with the skill of an assassin<br />
assembling a weapon under<br />
pressure. Having constantly<br />
enhanced her recipe for chicken<br />
paprikás for the past 20 years,<br />
she could do it blindfolded.<br />
S¸tefan and Laura make no<br />
mistakes in the culinary contest<br />
which has been going on for<br />
almost a millennium.<br />
It was around a bowl of<br />
ciorbă de fasole (sour bean<br />
soup) and a paprikás that Tirgu<br />
Mures was built. The rural yet<br />
tasty Romanian cuisine first<br />
met the flavour of paprika<br />
and caraway 900 years ago,<br />
when Hungarians and their<br />
spices arrived in Transylvania.<br />
Two centuries later, the first<br />
documentary evidence of the<br />
town appeared, though it’s<br />
believed it came into existence<br />
long before. Both Romanians<br />
and Hungarians proudly<br />
preserved their culture and<br />
cuisine, while stealing a glance<br />
at one another, to see what<br />
was being done differently,
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