What is 'főzelék' in Hungarian cooking?
Megosztó magyar ételekről beszélgetünk az utcán
B1 Hungarian listening practice · Standard Hungarian · Picked for people who know some
Főzelék is the Hungarian culinary category that doesn’t translate. It’s a thick vegetable stew, eaten as the main course (not a side dish): bean babfőzelék, lentil lencsefőzelék, pea borsófőzelék, potato krumplifőzelék, squash tökfőzelék. Most Hungarians grew up on weekly főzelék at school menza (cafeteria), and most have a love-hate relationship with the genre.
This street-interview clip stages the love-hate. One Hungarian flatly calls out finomfőzelék, a school-cafeteria főzelék mix that ironically translates to delicious stew: « Ez a neve, hogy finom főzelék, és egyáltalán nem finom » (the name is delicious stew, and it’s not delicious at all). « Olyan, mint egy jól sikerült szombatest maradványa » (looks like the leftovers of a wild Saturday night).
How common are the words?
How common are the words in this B1 Hungarian listening practice video?
How common in written Hungarian
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than B1. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸On Hungarian language-learning channels like Daily Hungarian (this clip’s source) and Hungarian with Sziszi where learners hit főzelék early in food-vocab lessons
- ▸In Hungarian school cafeterias (menza) and workplace canteens in Budapest and rural towns, where főzelék rotates daily
- ▸In Hungarian cookbooks by Mautner Zsófi (Chez Zsófi) and Stahl Judit on YouTube when chefs reclaim home-style stews
- ▸In Hungarian food coverage on Dívány and Nosalty when columnists debate which főzelék deserves a comeback