on summer food and water management

Last weekend we were having fun at a small village called Bogács. If you take a look at the Hungarian page of the famous spa, you'll get an image of what it is like. The village is based on spa-tourism. The main attraction is the special mineral warm water, which is said to cure many diseases, especially those of the locomotory, rheumatic and some gynaecological kind.

People can come all year round for a treatment, for there are pools with 'average water' as well.

Kids spend hours in the kids' pool. And what do people eat?

In Hungary, the standard menu on a place like this is icecream, pancakes (those are not pictured) and the scone. (called lángos in Hungarian, pronounce like luhn-ghosh). It is made of raised dough, something similar to the dough of bread, but it is fried in oil.

It is always served salted and hot (I don't mean hot as spicy, but as really, really warm)

You can top it with meshed garlic, that is the traditional kind, but grated cheese melted on the hot scone also satisfy your needs.

Here they are:

topped with sour cream and grated hard cheese

and this above is the simple one, with meshed garlic.And this is how it is eaten:
What else did you expect?

Besides scones, the fish and chips is also a sort of must-have at a spa. This is how we have it in Hungary.

And now, on to the topic of water management. Fish are considered a rarity in today's Hungarian cuisine in Hungary. While an average member of the EU consumes 22 kg of fish a year, the same figure for an average Hungarian is only 2,8 - one third of which is eaten before and around Christmas.

But it was not always the case. The Carpathian basin is full of rivers. The reason we consume less of this extremely healthy animal is not that two-third of the territory was cut off some 80 years ago - no, the signs of bad started much earlier.

Our main rivers, especially the Tisza, used to have an extensive system of backwaters. It surely did not allow for a quick water-based transport and due to regular, annual floods much of the land was unsuitable for arable management. During the late XIX century, much of the bends were straightened and much, if not all, of the prevoius floodlands were turned to agricultural areas. Consult this old map. The strong lines detail the present bed, whereas the dim arches show where the river used to be. Dim striped areas used to be floodlands.

Kudos, then?

Not so very much. Water management did speed up the flow of the river, making navigation easily available and faster. There were more areas to grow wheat or corn on. So? So?

The fast river still floods each year, washing away number of houses in certain years.

The ecosystem was seriously hurt - although the past long decades after the management were enough to allow for the estbalishment and slow development of a new one. I am not an ecologist, I've heard it from a friend, who is. The following short explanation is based on what he said to me:

'Flood, and the numerous branches and bends of Tisza were used by the people living there. They used to cut off certain parts of the river only to release it later on again and they bred fish. Various types of freshwater species. A whole cultural system was built upon the circumstances. The equipment they used were special, too. Fish were available in abundancy. People had fish, perhaps every day. Eating healthy fish was not restricted to some summer weekend when the family goes to a spa. Now we have to raise fish in artificial ponds. We are even stooped to import fish from whoever-knows-where. Managing backwaters and bendlets, raising fish on a daily basis, providing a smaller community with food used to give a natural and healthy and all-year occupation to many. This is what the lovers of the River Tisza weep for.'

I hear this man. And his love for Tisza caught me, too.

update: I'll be away for the weekend. Will be back when I have time to write. I'm planning to do the 8 strange things about you meme, for I have been tagged a good fortnight ago by Beth...