Budapest, Bread, and Hope
Faint Glimmers: My Dispatch from Budapest
“Is it Paris or is it communist Russia? Who knows?!” Colin Hanks
These days, thanks to lower wages and a lower cost of living — and studio heads’ need for more money — there’s a lot of Hollywood production in Hungary. On any given night, some celebrity or muckety-muck can be found sipping palinka at the Four Seasons Hotel bar or wandering along the Danube. I’m here because my husband is working on a television show, our apartment’s Apple TV still has Eddie Redmayne’s login info and I know what Colin Hanks said about Budapest because my friend ran into him here, he was nice, they chatted, he described this place perfectly.
The comparison to Paris is obvious: classic pre-war buildings on either side of a glorious river spanned by majestic bridges. Communism lingers in the depressing grey concrete buildings shoved between old elegant ones and the unsmiling faces seen on the street.
But when I heard this quote, my first thought wasn’t architecture or national character, it was bread. Budapest’s bread and pastries are — for real — better than bread and pastries in Paris.
I swear. But just in case my taste buds or memory had gone awry, I went to Paris to test my hypothesis. Any excuse to mow down more flour, sugar and butter than any…
