Next: about 24 to 26 Sept 2027
Hungarian paprika harvest days
In Kalocsa and Szeged, September brings the paprika harvest, with strings of red pods and goulash cooked in kettles.
Spices for Hungarian paprika harvest days
Paprika arrived in Hungary through the Ottoman Empire, and Kalocsa and Szeged are its two centres. Red pods are picked in September, dried and ground in mills, and the powder is graded from the delicate (edesnemes) to the hot. Festivals feature goulash and fish soup cooked over open fires, with strings of pods used as decoration. Hungarian cooks fry the paprika briefly in fat at the start of a dish, and never over high heat, to avoid bitterness.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Paprika" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Paprika: Takkk, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Caraway: Slick, CC0, source