Oil is dripping from the lángos we have just ordered, while a second lángos is being deep fried in hydrogenated vegetable oil. I am already regretting my impulsive suggestion that we should give this Hungarian deep-fried flatbread from my childhood a try. But no Budapest visit is complete without lángos, even if it makes us sick, so we are going for it. We will have our lángos the traditional way: doused with garlic water, ladled with sour cream and sprinkled with grated trapista cheese—the cheap and tasteless version of the Dutch Gouda.
The lángos I remember from my youth was an affordable, simple food that was often sold in bus stations, fairs, local markets and swimming pools. It was an unfussy snack, a popular side dish, also known as “the poor man’s food.” I used to love this shit. Of course at the time I didn’t give any thought to carbs and hydrogenated oils. I didn’t know what carbs and hydrogenated oils were! And I hadn’t stepped a foot outside of Hungary to appreciate better cheeses. Lángos for me was a treat; a sign of vacation.
Since the end of communism, or rendszerváltás (“changing of the system”) in 1989, and the gradual and then rapid ‘discovery’ of Hungary by tourists, this poor man’s food has become a thing. Everywhere you walk in the city centre you will find a fancy version of lángos, sometimes dressed up as pizza, sometimes as a hamburger, with a wide (and wild) range of toppings: sausages, mushrooms, bacon, onions, tomatoes, pickles etc. It’s no longer cheap either. While we buy our lángos at my local market for 1,500 HUF (about 3.50 - 4 Euros), lángos in the city centre and the Jewish district usually sells for 3,500 HUF (8-9 Euros) or more. The same is true for the famous kürtöskalács (chimney cake) that is now dressed with nutella and stuffed with ice-cream and whipped cream. I call these touristy versions of the old thing “death by lángos” and “death by kürtöskalács.” I don’t know how anyone can possibly eat it without getting sick.
My friend talks fast. Even when she speaks English I feel that she’s speaking Portuguese, which is part of her charm. Conversely, my friend smiles every time she hears me speak Hungarian with vendors and waiters. “The musicality of the language is a little similar to Italian,” she remarks. Magari. Or, magari it is my obsession with the Italian language that subconsciously infiltrates the way I speak. We manage to finish about 3/4 of our lángos that we both regard as a big achievement and carry on with our walk. We meander in the Jewish district, visit the street where my apartment is (still in ruins, renovations in pause), drop by my mum’s for coffee, visit the Hungarian National Museum and its tranquil garden, cross the famous Chain Bridge and walk up to the castle with the lángos (that feels more like a brick in our belly) we ate at eleven to sustain us for the rest of the day. It takes us seven hours to work out this lángos from our system, while we work through diverse issues in our lives.
We discuss relationships and how difficult it is to create the right balance even within a successful and supportive marriage-partnership, not to mention how rare it is to find a decent man; a decent human being.
“Would you consider,” says my friend, “to settle for a lángos, until you find your filet mignon?” I laugh. “Just to tie you over!” she clarifies. “Because you certainly deserve a filet mignon.” But I’ve had my share of lángos and it always ended up the same way: while it looked like a good idea when I was hungry, it always made me sick later, and worse, feeling disgusted with myself.
“How about a conquistador, like that one?” She suggests to me later that evening in a bar, pointing at a middle-aged Spanish man, sitting at a table nearby with his teenage daughter and son. “Probably divorced. Or widowed. Travelling with his children, like you. What do you think of his profile?” She’s selling the Spanish conqueror hard. We had noticed that Budapest was swarming with Spanish tourists, whom my friend had charmingly renamed conquistadores and it soon became a sort of joke between us, like so many other (harder) things we ache over, cry over, and ultimately find a way to laugh about. Whether it is our inherent loneliness that propels us to write, the constant rejections we get as artists/academics (I received three rejections from literary magazines during my friend’s stay, two days after yet another grant rejection), our challenges in raising teenagers (and in my friend’s case, also two younger children, four children in total!) and a childhood that taught us that we had to do everything well, alone and without asking, or expecting help from others.
We come from different countries, speak different languages, and yet, from our first casual exchange at the YMCA pool in Montreal twelve years ago, I regarded my friend as my lost sister.
When my friend boards the airport bus in Deak Tér, I feel suddenly rootless and lost in my hometown. Yes, I know this city like the back of my hand, but there is also this forever present and imperceptible distance that keeps me separated from it, unable to fully belong. A feeling I call “neither here, nor there” that my Portuguese friend who had spent a year in Oxford and is about to return to Montreal understands too well. Without proper roots and a support system, is it little wonder that we anchor each other?
Will I ever feel at home anywhere? I wonder as I walk on the elegant Andrássy Boulevard back to the apartment where I hope to find my teenage daughters in good spirits (or at the very least, in neutral spirits) after their Hungarian school. I call them and ask if they want me to pick up something for lunch. “Can you bring us some lángos?” my oldest daughter asks. “Sure,” I say, as I cross paths with another group of lively conquistadores and can’t help smiling to myself.
My oldest daughter finishes half of her lángos and my youngest daughter manages to eat about a quarter before she pushes her lángos away. “I forgot how bad it is,” she says. We agree that we won’t be poisoning ourselves with more lángos, but I somehow doubt that I’ll be ordering filet mignon any time soon. I’ll do what I always do: I’ll crawl back to my comfortable solitude and write to anchor myself. I’ll submit more poems and short stories to literary magazines that will likely reject me politely, assuring me that their decision “is not a reflection on my writing,” until one of those magazines will write back to congratulate me for the acceptance of my piece. I’ll write another grant proposal and cross all my fingers and toes that it is accepted so that I won’t have to go paint walls to provide for my daughters. But I will paint walls if it is the price to pay for my freedom and the feeling of security while I finish this book that I’m almost done revising.
What is harder is to work up the courage to have an honest conversation with my mother and tell her about the anxieties that have been keeping me up at night. What is harder is to ask for her help—something I have never done—in helping me move the renovations of my little Budapest apartment forward, so it could provide me with a steady, moderate income that would help relieve some of the pressures on me as a single mother. What is harder to admit to anyone, but especially to my mother, is that I may be strong, even very strong, but sometimes even the strongest people need a helping hand to feel a little more anchored in this world.
I prefer not to search for this need in a filet mignon or a conquistador, although I will admit that my hunger for a meaningful and mutually supportive partnership is slowly reaching starvation levels. But lángos is not the answer. Not for me.
Without realizing how much she has given me already, by walking with me, side by side, in my hometown where I don’t fully belong, my friend has been a steady anchor. She is not the only one. Without a doubt, one of my greatest stroke of luck has always been the friends in my life who have been steadily holding my hand and sustaining me with healthy snacks until I could find (or make) that hearty meal. This is not a small thing, and not something I take for granted. With a good friend, even a deep-friend lángos can taste somehow, delicious.
Thank you for reading. The Art of Lite Living is a reader-supported publication where I get real about all that is meaningful to me with the aim to provide inspirations for you to do the same. I don’t sell anything. But if you have enjoyed reading this essayette and wish to support this publication, please
And as always, I love to hear your thoughts on what makes you feel healthy, and what does not. Food and otherwise.
Have a wonderful Weekend/ week.
In case you missed it…
(My first post on Substack!)
A Tourist in my Hometown
It was a hot August night that first metamorphosed into a gentle, agreeable drizzle, then at once, into a disagreeable, violent downpour of rain. In no time, the streets were inundated with fresh rain water, joining forces with the not-so-fresh waste water that the sewage pipes were spitting out in torrents. At first, I was attempting to hop over the ac…
Imola, such a rich and satisfying read, and without the bellyache of a langos😀I appreciated your reflections on friendship, on the desire for a partner, and on the difficulty of asking for help when we strive to be independent. I trust you’ll find your way forward on creating the life you want; you possess everything you need to do so, from my vantage point.
Imola, ti voglio bene! And I love the truth here. And I too (after almost 28 years in Italy) often feel 'suddenly rootless and lost in my hometown. Yes, I know this city like the back of my hand, but there is also this forever present and imperceptible distance that keeps me separated from it, unable to fully belong.' Maybe it is bc I do have a husband who lives like a langos but still after 30 years loves and me as if I were a filet mignon (although we are vegan!), but is so searching in every other way. Never settled. I kid that the only thing he will never want to constantly change is me. Lucky and yet, where is home? Thank you for sharing. It is so beautiful to be reminded how alike our emotions are in so many different situations. We are tied by the need and desire to feel this belonging. Sharing words and emotions helps so much. Un abbraccio fortissimo. xx