Budapest - The Great Market Hall

The Great Market Hall (Nagy Vásárcsarnok) is one of the places everyone should see.

The history of the hall is interesting. According to their web site (http://www.csapi.hu) a competition to design a market hall was held and a jury voted to decide the prize winners. Three entries received first prizes of 2,000 Ft (about £6). The entry they chose from, Samu Pecz, got 14 votes, the other two got 15 votes! Around ten days before the building was due to be completed, a fire caused terrible damage. The subsequent investigation, which lasted for a year, could cast no light on the cause of fire. The building featured an indoor canal (now no longer there) by which goods were delivered to the market's traders.

The hall was damaged in the war, and other deterioration resulted in the hall being completely renovated in the early 1990s.

The food traders are on the ground floor, there's a cafe on the first floor and shops selling handicrafts and souvenirs. There's also a small supermarket in the basement.

There's a good selection of shops selling all sorts of food items including fruit and vegetables, pastries (one stand sells sweet and savoury strudels) salami and goose liver and, of course, paprika.

You can do a cookery course in the cafe upstairs, where they teach you to make authentic Hungarian dishes like Goulash, combined with a trip around the market to get the ingredients. The name Goulash comes from Hungarian gulyás (pronounced goo-yash) and means cowman.
Mushrooms are a key ingredient in Hungarian cookery. At one end of the market hall there are glass cases showing different types, and which one are poisonous!

Market stalls sell a wide range of dried mushrooms.

Apparently Paprika comes from two words meaning hot and pepper. The market sellers sold paprika in hot or sweet varieties.

In the market I bought a pack to make Goulash Soup. It contained paprika, chilli paprika, Gulyáskrém (Hungarian goulash cream paprika seasoning) and a packet of Egész Fűszerkömény which turned out to be caraway seeds.