Annual Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage Dinner Held for Freedom Day

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.