Annual Freedom Day Hungarian Dinner Held

What if you could buy a ticket to go home again…to the aroma of plum
dumplings and stuffed cabbage in your Grandmother’s kitchen filled with
the cheerful bantering of the ladies’ native Hungarian tongue? And you
could take your children, too, to show them this time that was your
childhood in eastern Connecticut, when the longer it took to slow cook
dinner and the more steps were involved, the prouder cooks were of it.

It is possible…and eagerly anticipated each year. The Hungarian
Social Club of Ashford’s Stuffed Cabbage Dinner is held each spring to
celebrate Freedom Day, the 1848 Hungarian Revolution to achieve
independence from Austria. It was quelled under the combined forces of
Imperial Austria and Russia, but it was a defining moment in Hungary’s
struggle for freedom. Commemorating the sacrifices that Hungarians have
made for freedom and liberty is important to the Hungarian-Americans of
the region. It’s also a reason to gather, cook together, and eat dishes
“almost” as good as Grandma used to make. This year’s family cabbage
recipe was cooked by Eva Makray Annati, a business owner of Willimantic
Bench Shop.

Stuffed Cabbage is a meal with so many steps that modern cooks are
unlikely to make it often if at all. The secret to authentic Hungarian
cabbage lies in the special blend of exquisite paprika and European
spices. Shared recipes for this dish with rice, ground meats, and beef
base tomato sauce often sneakily leave out the *one* ingredient that
gives it Grandma’s signature taste, leaving it known only to those who
watched and learned from her how to prepare her "direct from Europe"
dish.

The history of the Hungarian influx into Northeast Connecticut begins
early in the 20th century, American capitalists had recruited skilled
workers from Hungary for work in coal mining and manufacturing in New
York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but many of them wanted to be
farmers when they saved enough money due to the hazards of working
underground in dangerous tunnels. in 1956 when the Hungarians revolted
against the former Soviet Union and Hungarian-American state legislator
Joseph Zambo worked to clear a path for political refugees to come to
Connecticut. Northeast Connecticut offered a growing Hungarian-American
community affordable farmland and a job at a textile factory, including
Pioneer Parachute in Manchester, and Thread companies in Willington and Willimantic.

Residents of Hungarian ancestry contributed significantly to the community.
St. Philip the Apostle, a Roman Catholic Church in Ashford, was built
Hungarian and Czech-Slovak immigrants, literally with their own hands.
Every day, as they went about their work in the fields, the farmers
would set aside stones they found, and every weekend they shaped those
into the walls of the church that still stands here. Even the children
took part in the building. The church’s distinctive Byzantine-style
copper onion dome, an unusual feature in New England, is commonplace on
churches in Hungary.

The Hungarian Social Club's Freedom Day Stuffed Cabbage Dinner
provides a link to the past and an opportunity to teach visitors and
members about important events in Hungarian history. It’s also a
fundraiser that gives the community a way to support its continued
existence, even when club membership now numbers less than a dozen.

The next dinner, in October, commemorates the 1956 Revolution against the Soviet Union.

“When civic organizations like this disappear through lack of
support, like an old country store, everyone misses it, everyone is
sad,” says Esther Jagodzinski. “Without these annual dinners, the
community would move further and further away from the Eastern European
Diaspora. It’s Czech-Slovak, Hungarian, and Russian-Ukrainian
traditions. These are the people who came, settled the rural town, built
the church, and worked the farms and area factories. They were the
grist and toil of the community in the 1930’s and for the next 50 years.
That part of our community is more and more a memory every year. When
people enter the club for our events, though, the sounds and the smells
bring back their childhood and their connection to their parents,
grandparents, and great-grandparents.”

But when they gather, expect some squabbling over recipes: whether
beef or pork should have been used, how much rice to add or none at all,
extra vinegar or none, whether to put neck bones on the bottom of the
pot…or even beef ribs. “My family certainly didn’t have excess beef ribs
to add in,” Esther quips, "The tomato sauce, cabbage, and parsley, came
from our garden, and the pork may have come from a farm pig. Each
Eastern European immigrant family has their own authentic recipe for
stuffed cabbage, and the sights and smells of that encoded information
in our brain is what brings back the organic culture as we follow the
kitchen footsteps of our ancestors.”

The variety in regional differences of Hungarian culinary culture may
explain it. Or it could be that your grandmother’s recipe was
Americanized at some point substituting Crisco for lard, or walnuts for
hickory nuts. When people say, ‘This doesn’t taste like Grandma’s!’ as
they are wont to do, there is emotion behind it. It’s not just about the
food, they’re fighting to protect a very personal memory of the
traditional family feasts of their youth.

This year’s Hungarian Social Club Freedom Day Stuffed Cabbage Dinner
was held April 22, 2018. Young and old gathered to celebrate the
occasion, greet neighbors and meet new friends – but mostly to enjoy the
sounds and smells of cooking almost as good as their Grandma’s used to
do.