Caught In The Middle

Finally. Finally I get my act together and start to make my own pálinka, or Hungarian fruit brandy. Sometime ago, I joined a group of men who wanted to make their own “hooch” or home distilled spirits. Up until now I have been largely a silent/inactive part of the group – except of course for tasting the output from others- but I was determined to set about making pálinka. With the help and expert guidance of Dean I purchased the necessary equipment, and have made a start. (Actually I made a start a few weeks ago, but the result was a “not yet successful” attempt. This time it is serious, this time I am serious. So here is an account of the process of home-made pálinka, photos and all.

Part I deals with the making of the ‘wash’ or ‘mash’ – getting the fruit and fermenting it.

Step 1: Buy Your Fruit

I have always been a fan of plum brandy (szilva pálinka) so that was my first choice fruit.  At this time of the year, March, there are a reasonably good supply.  I choose the local Sunday ‘Farmers’ market as the place to buy the eight kilos of fruit required.  I also choose this market because it is, indeed, a market: not a shop or supermarket, but a place where people sell local food.  Those last two words are important: local, and food.   I recently finished reading Michael Pollan’s, In Defense of Food in which he convincingly makes the case that much of what makes up the so-called Western diet is made up on non-food and thus is leading to our current obesity epidemic.  Instead, he urges us to buy “food”, defined, inter alia, has something with less than five ingredients which you can pronounce and your grandmother would recognise!  Also the market reminds me of the markets that are common in Hungary and I have a vague feeling of nostalgia whenever I go to local ‘farmers’ markets. So it is off the local Sunday market to buy eight kilos of plums.

Step 2. Clean Your Equipment

The first step is accomplished: eight kilos purchased and carried home. One of the joys of home distillation is that you get to buy new stuff.  One of the “still boys”, Dean takes me by the hand, not down the path to righteousness, but to the local home-brew shop somewhere in the Hutt Valley.  We buy plastic buckets, magical chemicals and various other stuff.  Even an hydrometer to measure the amount of alcohol. Neat.  But before I begin, I must clean the lovely white plastic bucket that will hold the concoction while it ferments. So I use magic chemicals  and wash the bucket in the bath.

Step 3: Stone Your Fruit

As with all new ventures, you learn stuff you never knew before. Which is kinda the point of new ventures, I guess.  Did you know that stones from fruit contain have very small amounts of cyanide? Not enough to harm you apparently but I am by nature cautious.  And besides, Dean recommended it and I am student to my guide and mentor in this process, so I oblige and stone the fruit. Not before washing the fruit however. Stoning eight kilos of plums takes a long time.  Quite some time.  Maybe not next time.  But there is something therapeutic about stoning fruit this way.  I am sure that many repetitive actions become almost mesmerising after a while.

Step 4: Add Stuff to Fruit

We need to add stuff to the fruit to get the fermentation process going. So in goes four kilos of sugar and enough tap-hot water to take up the volume to twenty litres. This is a cool part of the process as there is something quite liberating about dumping four kilos of sugar over eight kilos of stoned plums. It is quite visceral. I didn’t feel that way about adding the water as, of course it, dissolved the sugar. Next is some mysterious white powder Dean has given me that are called “yeast nutrient salts.”

In they go, to be nutrious. A this stage I feel like I making progress. And indeed I am.  Almost there now. The last step is to add yeast and crushed vitamin B tablets. But Dean’s injunction is clear: the water and plums (and sugar) mixture, must cool to 30^o.  One of the nifty things we bought was a paper thermometer that is attached to the side of the tank to measure the temperature. How long do you think hot tap water takes to cool to 30^o? Quite some time. A long time in fact.  Long enough to have an afternoon nap after my exertions. Finally, several hours later, the temperature is at the required level and in goes the yeast and crushed vitamin B tablets.  Not just any yeast. It is, I think, Lalvin EC 1118 Selection Champagne yeast. I reckon if you are going to use yeast, champagne yeast is as good as any.

Step 5. Seal It

The fruit mash is complete and now the yeast must do its work. I seal the tank with a rubber bung and airlock. A few hours later, I hear a noise.

A strange, ill-defined noise.  Kinda like a “plop, plop, gurgle, gurgle”.  Ah, the airlock is bubbling away. Fermentation is taking place. An ancient and primeval process that surely goes back thousands of years. It is as if the ancient code is broken and the secrets of making alcohol is revealed once more.

When we wake up in the morning, the gurgling sound continues and a faint smell of yeast permeates the house. Ah, I love the smell of yeast in the morning.  Not sure whether the rest of the family shares quite the same sense of exhiliration.

Step 6: Wait

The fermentation has started and now I must wait 7 to 10 days, or perhaps longer, before the process has ended and the mash is ready for the next stage: distillation. Dean suggests I stir the ‘mash’ each day. This I do with much pleasure.  I let nature take its course, and feel that an earthy connection with man’s ancestral desire to make alcohol and thereby ever so slightly and temporarily, alter his consciousness.

The 2009 Hungarian Press Photography Awards have been announced. The overall winner is a stunning series of Roma (Gypsy) grieving by the Hungarian photographer Béla Szandelszky. My favorite is the one of three woman grieving. The site is in Hungarian but Google translate does a reasonable job (to English anyway). And of course there is the inevitable Flash navigation to come to grips with. This means it is very hard to link to the actual photos themselves, but perhaps the point. Nonetheless this form of navigation is an irritant.

All the photos demonstrate that the rich tradition of Hungarian photography that includes André Kertész, Robert Capa, László Moholy-Nagy and Marton Munkácsi to name but a few of the greatest photographers of last century, is very much alive and well.

Indeed the Szandelszky series marks almost a century of Hungarian ethno-photography when Kertész began photographing local villages, Roma and Hungarian village, and urban, life in general.

You cannot write a history of the twentieth century and not mention the lifetime achievements of the Hungarian who is the subject of the third in this series: Edward Teller. He, along with the physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and mathematician John von Neumann, unleashed the power of the atom in a way that changed the world for ever. Teller, widely regarded as the “father of the hydrogen bomb” was at the very epicentre of those early days of atomic, then hydrogen and finally nuclear weaponry. While all played their part, Teller was perhaps the most ardent of the proponents of this type of weaponry and indeed all things nuclear.

He was, like his Hungarian colleagues mentioned above, scientifically brilliant: but he was also a difficult person to get along with and in his dedication to his ideals broke many friendships. His legacy is in some ways ambivalent: Dr Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel laureate who worked on the Manhattan Project in World War II, called Dr Teller ”a danger to all that’s important”, adding that ”it would have been a better world without Teller”. A harsh judgement to be sure, but one cannot discount the importance of his work in ensuring the West was the first to have atomic weapons and in ensuring their continued military and scientific leadership during the Cold War.

Edward (Ede) Teller was born into a prosperous Budapest family in January 1908. His family was not untypical of Budapest at that time: both parents were Jewish, and both were from “greater” Hungary: his father was from Érsekújvár (now Nové Zámkj in Slovakia) and his mother was from Lugos (now Lugoj in Romania). His childhood and early school years were, by all accounts, not that happy. He was, for example, teased at high school for being “too bright”.

He was close to his mother (who moved, along with his sister, to the United States in 1959, thanks to the efforts of Edward). But those were also turbulent times: the World War, the disintegration of Hungary, Béla Kun’s short-lived revolution and the violent reaction that followed. I doubt many Hungarian children growing up in that era had a particularly happy time.

As soon as he turned 18, Edward went to Germany to study for his doctorate. But by 1933 it became to clear to him that as a Jew, Germany, and indeed Europe was no place for him and like so many others, he emigrated to America. His childhood sweetheart, Augusta Mária Harkányi, affectionately called Mici, eventually joined him and they were married for sixty-six years.

Understandably these upheavals made a deep and lasting impression on him. He remained a bitter opponent of all totalitarian regimes, be they fascist or communist, and with his fierce independence and determination, he was not prepared to stand on the academic sidelines while the great ideological battles of his century unfolded and played out. His family suffered while in Hungary. His brother-in-law died in a concentration camp in 1945. His mother and sister were internally exiled in 1950 and returned to Budapest, having lost everything, in 1953. Edward never forgave the communist government for these actions against his family and it only served to strengthen his determination.

In 1938 Teller entered history, as he liked to joke, as Leo Szilárd’s chauffeur. He was referring to the occasion when Szilárd and Wigner were driven by Teller – the only one who owned a car – to see Albert Einstein and persuade him to write to President Roosevelt and advise him that not only was an atomic bomb possible, but it was imperative that America act quickly to develop one. The letter would lead to the eventual formation of the so-called Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atomic bomb. Some have argued this letter was the most important of the twentieth century: perhaps somewhat of an exaggeration but the role these three Hungarians had in persuading the greatest scientist of his epoch to write to Roosevelt and thereby prod the United States government into action, is undeniable.

In 1943 Teller joined the Manhattan Project, led by Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer to develop the first atomic bomb. It should be added that it was Leo Szilárd who provided the intellectual and theoretical impetus to this project. The first successful test on 16 July 1945 in the Nevada Desert, at a place called, curiously, Trinity, did indeed signal a new world: the genie had been unleashed and could not be put back in the bottle. The world had undeniably changed forever.

Teller then embarked on a project to develop the hydrogen bomb, a device that would be hundreds of times more powerful than the Nagasaki and Hiroshima blasts. However, this set him firmly against Oppenheimer, who was just as intense and obsessive as Teller. Oppenheimer would have none of Teller’s ideas regarding them as unworkable and indeed unnecessary, and given the enormous destructive power that would be inevitably unleashed on civilian populations, immoral. He remarked, “God protect us from the enemy without and the Hungarian within!”.

Their clash would reach its peak at the so-called Oppenheimer Hearings in 1954. This was the height of McCarthyism and the Cold War. Oppenheimer was anonymously accused of being a Soviet spy and his security clearance was called into question. Teller testified and while agreeing that Oppenheimer was not disloyal to the United States, he did suggest that he personally would feel “more secure” if such vital public matters were in other hands. The authorities agreed and Oppenheimer was denied his security clearance.

A great cleaving took place in Teller’s life at this junction. Many of his colleagues were dismayed at his actions, accusing him of putting personal power and ambition before the loyal and talented Oppenheimer. The rifts would slowly lessen over time but for many in the scientific community Teller had become persona non grata. This hurt him and Mici a great deal and her health suffered badly.

For the rest of his life Teller continued to be an ardent supporter of all things nuclear, being – among other things – the chief proponent of the anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as ”Star Wars”. He would become an easy target for the “mad scientist” stereotype with his accent and bushy eyebrows helping to reinforce this image. Indeed, he was also rumoured to be the inspiration for the character of Dr Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satirical film of the same name. He bristled at that suggestion!

After 1989 and the fall of communism, Teller often returned to Budapest, the city of his roots. He died in 2003, aged 95, having earlier that year been awarded America’s highest honour, the Medal of Freedom.

It is often said that two of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is roots and wings: roots to know where their home is and wings to take what has been taught them and exercise their imagination and talents. Szilárd, his colleague, long-time friend and fellow Hungarian once said “I would rather have roots, but if I can’t have roots, I shall have wings.” Teller certainly took all he learned in his beloved Budapest and soared above his century.

Much has been made in recent days of the spelling of a small provincial town on the west coast of the North Island known as Whanganui or Wanganui. A simple ‘h’ is the at the heart of the issue here. The facts of the case are relatively simple. The local iwi, or Maori tribe, have sought for a long time to have the official name spelt as Whanganui, whereas the majority of local residents have voted overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the spelling Wanganui. A formal process was followed, whereby local iwi submitted their case to the New Zealand Geographic Board, the organisation responsible for the matter. Both sides of the argument were heard and debated, with the Board finally recommending the official name be spelt with an ‘h’, subject to final review by the Minister for Land Information, one Maurice Williamson. The Minister showing fine political judgement decided that both spellings were official and could use used, but also requiring Crown agencies adopting the spelling Whanganui. This change would be made over time as signs and so forth are due for replacement.

How did the issue arise in the first place? It seems that in the nineteenth century the town was incorrectly, i.e. as a result of an error, spelt without the ‘h’. Over time this simply became common practice. Language is a living organism and so change is inevitable, for whatever reason. Interestingly however the river on which the town is also located is known as Whanganui having being renamed as such in 1991, again due to the wishes of the local iwi. Likewise the local electorate is known as “Whanganui”, the local health authority is the “Whanganui District Health Board”, but the local high school is “Wanganui High School”. Some of this is no doubt the difference between the town itself as an entity, as opposed to the surrounding district. Nonetheless both spelling happy co-exist, side-by-side.

So it is not surprising that both sides of the argument seem happy with the outcome: Tariana Turia, co-leader of the Maori Party and Minister in the current government pronounced she found the decision ‘uplifting’, whereas the local mayor, Michael Laws, a fierce proponent of the status quo, said he was ‘pleased’ the Minister hadn’t fully accepted the ‘stupid’ decision of the Board.

Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, however is the fact that many ‘average’ New Zealanders seem unhappy with the decision. Comments in local newspapers reflect a thinly disguised racism in their opposition to the decision. For example, one comment says, “Whatever Maori (minority) wants in this country, they will get because European New Zealanders are weak. Proven over and over again. Sad but true.”, while another opines, “I think the Maori people in NZ have much more important things to deal with, such as Smoking, overuse of alcohol and drugs and huge unemployment, to name but a few.” Strange, but I don’t hear such people saying the pakehas need to deal with their financial mismanagement that has led to thousands of New Zealanders losing millions of dollars over the past 18 months in failed finance companies.

Some people also struggle to deal with the decision that gives both sides of the argument some sense of victory. Some see the decision as “indecisive” or “a bob each way”. They reflect a view that the decision should have been a “win-lose” (or “lose-win”!), a zero-sum game where one side advantage automatically means defeat for the other. The decision to have both Whanganui and Wanganui gazetted as official names as been used before such as the names Mt Egmont/Mt Taranaki, or Mt Cook/Aorangi.

Then there are those who confuse spelling with pronunciation, citing all sorts of example where towns have the same spelling but different pronunciations. The issue is compounded by the fact that English is not a phonetic langauge, whereas Maori is. So ‘Wanganui’ is pronounced with a “w” as in ‘wag’, but in Maori the “wh” is an “f” sound. Local pakeha find this hard to say. One comments says, “Different iwi/areas have ways of saying ‘Wh’ some say ‘F’, others say ‘W’. I for one, Whelcome the end to this whole thing and hope that it whill all be whorgotten over time.” How ‘whitty’, one might add, with heavy sarcasm.

To me the decision reflects the reality of New Zealand. We are a bi-cultural nation, founded on the Treaty of Waitangi which is in essence a partnership between the Maoris as tangata whenua (‘people of the land’, or those that arrived first to New Zealand) and the Crown. In that spirit of partnership we as a country need to work through the issues confronting us. The Maori do have a special and privileged role in that partnership that is not based on their numeric strength or otherwise, but in their status an indigenous people. Likewise the Crown has a responsibility to represent all New Zealanders, regardless of racial or ethnic origin. This is the reality of our country and what makes New Zealand unique. The conflict reflects the underlying cultural tension that exists in New Zealand, but one in which this decisions shows can be worked through pragmatically and on the basis of principle.

I prefer Whanganui, but I am happy to visit Wanganui any time.

It is the Hungarian tradition that Jesus (Jézuska), rather than Santa Claus, who brings the presents under the Christmas tree. I e-mailed him this year, blind carbon copying the family I guess it is one way to think what is important at this time of year, as well to provide practical help to the family. Here is what I wrote.

Dear Jézuska,

Well it is that time of the year again. There is nothing I need or want, only “would like to have”. I have a loving family, a nice home, a job that pays pretty good, reasonable health (although if you could arrange for a few less kilos, I wouldn’t argue), enough beer and pálinka, my sight, most of my hearing, and recently my very own mobile telephone. And I even have enough computer toys to keep this boy happy for most of the time. So, as I say, I have what I need and want – although perhaps one day you could arrange for a “Paul’s room” one day, that would be great.

Old Friends
When I think about what I would like, I think of old friends that are missing in my life. By that I mean books that have meant something to me over the years that have for various reasons are no longer with me. These books feel like friends: they gave me companionship, meaning and pleasure and I miss them. If I could be re-united for any of the list below, that would be just great. They don’t need to be brand, spanking new versions, second-hand is fine. Their value lies not in their newness, but in their oldness.

“Zen And Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance”, by Robert M. Pirsig was one of those life-changing books. I first read in my seventh form year and while I didn’t understand a lot otf it, I do remember a central tenet of the book: that you need to have an intellectual construct, a mental image of a whole, of a “something”, e.g. a motorcycle, before you can do anything with it. You can’t fix a motorcycle, until you have an “idea” of a motorcycle.

“The Power and The Glory”, by Graham Greene, is perhaps his greatest novel. For years I resisted reading it because of its religious overtones. But I relented and was overtaken by the power of this story of a nameless “whiskey priest” in Mexico and his search for redemption through his faith. A masterpiece that should be on the bookshelf of every intelligent person.

“The Honoray Consul” by Graham Greene. With a title like that, and a main character called Clara, it is a bit of a no-brainer to be reunited with this work. Although I should add, that that is as far as any similarity to our life goes!

“The Myth of Sisyphus”, and “The Stranger”, both by Albert Camus. The first left a big impression on me during my formative years, in the same way as did “Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” – life is really a relentless struggle to find meaning but that very search for meaning is what gives life meaning. All very existentialist. “The Stranger” is the only book I have every read in a language other than English. It was a prescribed text in 6th Form French and while I don’t remember much about it, I do well recall the much quoted opening sentence, “Aujourd’hui, ma mère est morte.” It goes on to say, “Ou c’était peut-être hier, je ne suis pas sûr.” Weird, but compelling. (By the way, I would prefer English editions )

New Friends
There is nothing to say I can’t make new friends. I like Jamie Oliver and any cook books by him would be welcome. But there are a so many books out there that I have no knowledge of and so surprises are always welcome. I don’t know what I don’t know. (I would prefer not to have works by Witi Ihimaera.)

Thank you in advance.