The staff were very kind and welcoming and explained our choices: normally they have a soup,  one or two subjis, rice, pakoras, a Hungarian dish, a salad and cakes. You can buy a meal or set menus, raging from student (small 630 Hufs) to maharaja (everything they have for 1980 Hufs). Most dishes are lacto vegetarian, but there are always vegan options. Interestingly when we were there everything was vegan!

We had chickpea soup with peanuts, aubergine subji with rice and salad, small veggie burgers and pakoras on a skewer. I really loved the soup and the pakoras, so much that I bought a couple more to take home for the children.

This is the “bharata menu” and pakoras, it was very filling and great value for 1400 Hufs!

Bharata
Bharata Cultural Centre is the new home of Indian culture and cuisine: it offers yoga, ayurvedic medicine, meditation, dance and music courses,  and soon cooking classes! The cafe has special offers at the moment with really friendly prices. All food is lacto vegetarian or vegan. There are set menus, special offers for students, lassis and sweets.
Budapest 1074. Almássy tér – Tivadar u. 3.
Open: Monday-Friday:  12:00-8.pm; Saturday 6pm-9pm, Sunday closed
http://bharata.hu/bisztro.html

I first heard his name over 20 years ago, when I told an old lady that I was vegetarian and she asked if I was a “bicsérdist”? I was baffled and it took me many years to find out what she meant.

Bicsérdy Béla - 1898 - Fogaras, Balázsfalva

He was born in 1872 and his life was forever changed when he got syphilis as a young man. He tried many doctors and treatments but nothing helped till he went vegetarian and later frutarian.  By the outbreak of the first world war he cured himself from all illnesses, his hair and 3 of his lost teeth had grown back (testified by witnesses)!

He believed that if you follow a very moderate raw diet with regular fasts, exercise every day and spend several hours studying that you can live up to several hundred years old. He thought humanity went downhill when “Thou shalt not kill” was abused- not just eating animals but killing living food with cooking. This lead to illnesses and confusion, fear, hatred and wars. People need a “master” to lead them out of this chaos; and he recognized three masters: Jesus, Zoroaster, and himself.

The path he recommended was to respect the laws of nature and become a frutarian. With this life style we can release the self healing capacity of the human body. If you follow this raw food diet you’ll be resistant to diseases and step on the path of physical and mental development. He considered cooked or baked vegetarian food as manure, and eating meat as consuming death. He didn’t allow coffee, cigarettes and alcohol consumption either. He also emphasised the ills of overeating and told his followers to aim for a diet of few apples a day. Apart from moderation pace is also crucial: you have to chew your food till it loses the taste- this may mean many minutes!

He taught that blood is the soul and cleaning the bloodstream with fasts and healthy lifestyle was vital for wellbeing. He also said that clean thoughts could only come from clean blood.

Bicsérdy also categorized food according to their value, fruit came highest and legumes at the bottom. He was extremely well read and in his book and lectures came up with many examples from all over the world and across history to prove his point.

Fasts were a crucial part in his method. He recommended starting with an 8 day fast and gradually introducing a raw diet. He used wild beasts as examples- they refuse food when they are ill. He recommended fasting for 2-3 days each week.

Daily exercising was also part of his system, also breathing exercises, clean thinking and refraining from sex except for conception, and at least 3 hours of studying a day, languages and science.  He also promised that following his system people only need a few hours of sleep a day- which was definitely true for him as confirmed by his peers. Once he held a non stop lecture for 83 hours and only ate a few apples in between.

His system is built on philosophical foundations: the final aim of humanity is to get rid of bad qualities, and the first step is to stop eating degrading food. The aim is not bodily health but the first necessary step on the path to spiritual development.

in 1925

According to the records (and there were thousands of articles written about him in the papers) he was a really charismatic man, and his public lectures were so popular that the authorities cancelled a few to stop the crowds going mad. He was one of the 4 strongest men in the world in 1902, and broke several weight lifting records. He broke a world record  in 1922 bench pressing 188 kg when he was 50!  He gained more than 10 000 followers promoting a raw vegan diet and regular fasting, many of them reaching 100 years and some of them still alive today!

There is some fascinating data too from the 1925 statistics: the turnover of the slaughter houses decreased in some cities by 11-19% and the death rate went down too, so he had an amazing influence on the society.

He uses the 1910 census to back his theories: in Bulgaria out of 2500 000 citizens 3800 were 100 or older, but in Germany out of 67 million only 126 were 100 or older! According to him it was due to the diet of Bulgarians which was mainly vegetables and dairy and because they observed 150 days of fasting a year.

Béla Bicsérdy and his followers - 1936 - Szentendre

His followers created two vegetarian colonies, one near Szolnok 1923, where 32 families lived, mainly former clerks and schoolteachers. They followed a raw vegan diet and lived off their own produce. The other colony was formed in 1930 west of Szentendre and by 1935 it had 90 members.

Interestingly Béla Bicsérdy’s brother was the president of the Hungarian Vegetarian Society but the two brothers fundamentally disagreed on what “the right path” was. Béla Bicsérdy had a very strong “my way or the highway” attitude. After the second world war he had to leave Hungary, he fled to Germany and later to USA and there are several versions of his death- from a car accident to being shot by a devotee. The communist regime of course disapproved of him and his work and all his books were destroyed and soon this man of enormous influence was forgotten save for a few dedicated followers- some of them reached to be 100.

I am totally fascinated by his life and the ability to regrow teeth! Our dental bills are enormous! Also if you only eat a few apples a day then shopping, cooking, meal planning is all a non issue.. but I think I will start slowly just eating more raw every day…

sources- all in Hungarian

wikipedia Bicsérdi tanítása és a bicsérdizmus

BICSÉRDY BÉLA ÉS A BICSÉRDYZMUS thesis by Áprily Zoltán

http://www.egeszsegestaplalkozas.eoldal.hu/cikkek/bicserdy-1.html

images

Budapest has several outdoors ice rinks, the biggest and nicest is Műjégpálya at the city park. The artificial ice rink and the main building have recently been fully renovated. It is open every day in the morning and in the afternoon (closed at lunch time) and you can rent skates or sign up for classes. I prefer weekday mornings, it is a lot more relaxed when the teenage kids are at school and not playing tag at 90 miles/hour. You will notice some elderly people doing pro dance moves, these pensioners are a delight to watch, but the music leaves a lot to be desired.

By prepchik07

You can find several other smaller rinks in the city and many schools turn their football pitch to an ice rink for a few weeks. We visited Lake Omszk this morning, it is a few kilometres north of Budapest, a former gravel pit turned into a recreational area. The lake is totally frozen and there were lots of happy people skating, playing hockey or just sliding around. Lots of happy doggies too! Can you see the dad with the pushchair in the middle of the lake? You can see James and our toddler there too.

If you fancy skiing you just need to get over to the Buda hills and bus no. 21 will take you to Normafa, where you can find 7 ski slopes! Not exactly the Alps, but very convenient.  Most people will sledge down, then take the bus up again, drink some mulled wine, or pálinka, have a rétes and off again! Great fun!

by Zsolt Bugarszki

Sledging you can do almost anywhere on the Buda side, there are hills everywhere! The best slopes are around the Normafa, Sas Hegy and the Hármashatárhegy. Wheeeee!

Ganges

The Ganga Vega Cafe has a big brother now, a restaurant close to Octogon. They offer delicious vegetarian food, Indian menus, and healthy options. They offer home delivery too.
1064 Budapest Vörösmarty utca 31.
gangesetterem@gmail.com
+36.30.5306368; +36.70.6338981
www.ganges.hu
Open M-Saturday 12- 8 pm

Bharata

Bharata Cultural Centre is the new home of Indian culture and cuisine: it offers yoga, ayurvedic medicine, meditation, dance and music courses,  and soon cooking classes! The cafe has special offers at the moment with really friendly prices. All food is lacto vegetarian. There are set menus, special offers for students, lassis and sweets. Can’t wait to try!
Budapest 1074. Almássy tér – Tivadar u. 3.
Open: Monday-Friday:  12:00-8.pm; Saturday 6pm-9pm, Sunday closed

Hummus Bar

There is a new vegetarian hummus bar just a few minutes from the budaveg vegetarian B&B, at  Hollán Ernő utca 6. James had a Falafel plate and was very pleased with it.
Open: Monday-Friday 10-10pm Saturday Sunday: 12-10 pm
Tel: 06 70 932 8284

Mannatural 

This lovely vegan raw food restaurant has moved! Just a few minutes from the previous location to 1054 Budapest, Garibaldi u. 5. They also offer an “all you can eat buffet” lunch for 3000 HUF and dinner for 5000 HUF on weekdays. Please call or email to reserve for dinner: 06-20-776-9843, info@mannatural.hu, just pop in for lunch.

This means we have now 22 vegetarian restaurants and cafes in Budapest, pretty amazing! I have just updated the restaurants page and our ebook accordingly, which you can get by subscribing to our mailing list. We hardly ever send out any emails, and you can safely unsubscribe any time.

And here is the werkfilm too:

If you are still unsure about the buildings pop over to Balázs’s blog, there is a map with a possible jogging route and he identified all the buildings! It is indeed in Hungarian, but it is easy to understand!

Still want more Hugh Jackman? He shot another Lipton ad at Hármashatárhegy, my favourite hiking place from my childhood in the 3rd district. This is quite funny:

We found out that James’s health problems are caused by heavy metal poisoning from his amalgam fillings so in the past few weeks we spent all our time googling the net and at dentists and health practitioner’s surgery. We went from normal dentists to holistic ones and ended up at a “biological dentist” who is an expert at safe amalgam removal and does a lot of additional therapy. It also costs an arm and a leg (rather a second hand car) but still it is 6 times cheaper than in the UK, so we can actually pay for it without re-mortgaging the house, yupee!

Obviously I am going to blog about dentists now, dental tourism is massive in Hungary, and perhaps others can benefit from my recently gained knowledge. I am not going to link any or do any advertising, unless we have personally tried them.

Also we have been looking into raw food diets and met a couple of expert and committed raw foodist, I am planning on running a series on raw food movements in Hungary starting with no other than Mr Bicsérdy himself, our own frutarian celebrity from 1900, then Gitta and Aniko fronm Raw Food Academy and Agnes from Life Kitchen.

And to finish on a happy note we offer a 10% discount for any bookings made in February (you can book any dates in 2012) if you write “heavy metal” in the booking request- just to raise some money for James’s dentist, lol.

Ah yes, and here is my bottom right wisdom tooth operated out last Friday, cute, right? Our kids love playing with it. The young lady in the picture is also teething like hell by the way. I could also post a picture of my swollen face too, but that is not so pretty.Luckily I didn’t have to take antibiotics and I think homoeopathy really helped in my quick recovery.   One more wisdom tooth to go…

Our friends kindly took the kids and we decided to be hopeful and went to the surgery instead. We had to wait a good half an hour (there were 4 people waiting) but the receptionist said if he had any difficulty breathing we should just walk in the surgery.  He was seen by a young doctor who spoke very good English. She confirmed the GP’s fear and sent us to the hospital, James wasn’t to keen on going to hospital at all, but she told us that if it is an abscess it can be fatal as the pus can get in the lungs and he needs hospital care asap.

So we went to the hospital in duty which was Szent Janos a short drive from Moszkva/Szell Kalman ter. At the ward we met a young friendly doctor who spoke excellent English, and soon we found out that he was in fact French! I found it deeply ironic that we meet a French doctor working here when so many local doctors are leaving the country. He examined James and later called his colleague, they have decided that even though they were not sure if there was an abscess or not, James need further examinations and perhaps a CT.  They both ensured me that it is a minor thing and the biggest difficulty is to process the EHIC in the system. Since they both spoke excellent English I was of no use and went home to put the kids to bed, who were very mixed up already.

James had further tests and a CT but couldn’t confirm for sure if there was an abscess or not and in the morning a couple more doctors looked at him and in the end they have decided to perform a surgical incision just to play it safe. Also he was put on antibiotics, but since he is allergic to penicillin and a couple of other antibiotics- and had no record of which on him- they had to find a suitable one and watch him closely. The operation was awful as you can imagine- being stabbed in the throat, but after a day he was much better and could eat, talk and after two nights he could come home.

He picked the right time to go to hospital- it was empty he had the whole ward for himself! We were really pleasantly surprised that all doctors spoke English and he could easily communicate with all. Hospitals in Hungary are shabby and understaffed but I have to admit, we only met kind and smiling people there. To our delight most of the meals were vegetarian, so James could actually eat there, once he was given a split pea soup, the next day some bread with cheese spread (körözött), spring onions and a kiwi fruit. Again the EU card worked and he was covered by his UK health insurance.

When we got his medicine from the pharmacy we experienced the first problem with the EHIC, as the first pharmacy we waltzed into just couldn’t process it and wanted us to pay for the medicine. We just went to another pharmacy, where they could process it (having the card on hand really helps as doctors have terrible handwriting in this country!) and James got his medicine on NHS so only needed to pay for part of the sum.

So before you come to Hungary get your EHIC or health insurance and the system actually works!

Pots and containers are pretty common everywhere for flowers but we experimented with growing edible stuff- and hey they are pretty too! Our tomatoes did really well in the simple flower pots, we really only needed to keep them safe from the dog, but otherwise were easy plants. This year we planted some in the garden and they did amazingly well, we had yellow tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes as well, my favourites are the yellow ones, fantastic taste, really sweet!

I planted strawberries too, but they didn’t give a lot of fruit at all- we had like 20 berries from 10 plants- a plain waste of money…

James built a fantastic pergola to have some shade in the hot summer days, and also to have a place for the kid’s swings. I planted pink roses on one side and kiwis on the other at the posts, and runner beans in between. I planted normal runner beans and these special long green beans I discovered at the local market a year ago. The runner beans did really well, and I picked enough beans for 3 soups in the middle of the summer. Then just before the second harvest hundreds of shield bugs appeared on the beans, but they didn’t seem to harm them. I consulted Aron again and he said that they would suck the beans dry- and he was right, we lost the second harvest. Luckily there was a third batch right in October because we had an amazingly warm and sunny autumn. Look at these beans, I am in love with the colours!

I also planted these long green beans called “Turkish beans”. They like to run up to four meters and weren’t too happy with the mere two meters I provided them, still we had a few beans, enough to steam as a side dish.

Finally a trick I learnt from Aron; before the frost came I had to pick all our tomatoes and I was so upset about the green ones, but he advised me to put them on a tray with a few apples, put a tea towel on the top and they would ripen. And they did! They taste like store tomatoes, so not as good as the sun ripened ones, but at least they are organic.

Honestly I don’t think we saved any money on growing our own food, plants and potting mix are not cheap-but quality local veg is. However it was fun, very satisfying to pick warm sun kissed food and I think it is good to show your children, after all they learn by example.

We spent the afternoon making cinnamon rolls- snails and ladybirds- to leave next to those tiny boots for St. Nicholas and I am certain that he will be delighted!

So will the kids with these red sacks: they contain two raisin-apple muffins, a small packet of chocolate covered currants, a golden walnut, a red apple and a tiny wooden car.

Budapest is also getting ready for the celebrations, the lovely decorations are up, Christmas trees, lights and the Christmas tram started running too! It is the good old number 2 that runs along the river on the Pest side, check out this short video and see the amazing ride with all the sights along the Danube lit up!

And of course don’t forget to check out the Christmas fair at Vörösmarty square! There are quality crafts, hot wine, great toys and gifts, live music and entertainment for all ages.  And Santa from Finland is at the grotto tomorrow.

If you prefer cutting edge design, then the Museum of applied Arts is the place next weekend, on the 10th-11th from 10 am till 8 pm there is a contemporary design market, and guess what! Napfényes patisserie will be there too with vegan delights!

• 200 grams flour
• 100 grams brown sugar (I use birch sugar)
• 5 tbs of sunflower seed oil
• 3 tbs cocoa powder
• 1 cup water/ rice milk/ soy milk (I use vanilla soy milk)
• 1tbs apple cider vinegar
• a few drops of vanilla extract or satchel of vanilla sugar (I omit this, there is already vanilla in the soy milk)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200 grams frozen, pitted sour cherries

I simply mix everything together for a short time (but it is better to sieve the flour and the other dry ingredients together if you have time!) , then add the cherries and mix them in with a spoon- and then spoon the batter into silicone muffin trays- this batch makes 12 muffins. I bake them at 160 C with the fan on for about 30 minutes.