From Hungary to Toledo, Ohio - Birmingham.

        One wonders how the housewives did it. Those Hungarian homes were small. How did they bundle everyone in one sleeping room? How did they store the flour, the clothes, the pots and pans in one storage room?  The women kept the hens cooped together, the animals fed and the floors swept with all their family under their feet.

       The homes in these villages were the size of this particular house in this picture from Jablonca. The architecture looks very familiar. A row of these Magyar cottages will stand out in any American working- class urban neighborhood with Eastern European immigrants. Tightly wedged in the shadows of the smokestacks of the factories, they are usually built of brick, in one or one and a half stories with a flat front facade, two windows and an archway. The archway will either be in the corner or the center of the facade. In the city locations, most of these homes will be built right up to the edge of the sidewalk to permit more yard room in the back for their usual outdoor activities like jam making, soap making, herb growing, smoking meats or sausages. Women did laundry in the back yards and families tended vegetable gardens along with many fruit trees. They kept their country traditions intact right in their own backyards.

       Birmingham, the Hungarian section of Toledo, Ohio, is on the National Historic register for it's historic ties to it's Magyar culture. Many of the homes still retain their native forms. You can read about it in this scholarly treatment in AmericaneJournal that I found online. It describes the "Birmingham" ways perfectly  at http://americanaejournal.hu/vol2no2/szentgyorgyi   

       Birmingham is also the host of a yearly summer festival. Updates featured on their own website at http://birminghamethnicfestival.wordpress.com/

Of Birmingham and Hungarian nut rolls

The cookbook I treasure, now that my Mom is gone, is a dog-eared, folksy collection of Hungarian and some American recipes. It was collated together by the St. Stephen's Mother Club in Birmingham of East Toledo, Ohio. Birmingham is not an actual place you can google map; it's an old historic district that began in the 1890's in East Toledo. The boundaries started at the Maumee river and grew as more immigrants came to work in the smokey, industrial factories that provided jobs. It was coined "Birmingham" because of it's resemblance to the English industrial city in the West Midlands that was a center of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.  By 1900, Toledo's Birmingham had many factories, a large Hungarian population. It sprouted many churches to hold the numerous religious beliefs among their workers who were mostly Greek Catholic, Reformed, Catholic plus, a few Baptists. St. Stephen's on Genesee Street was a Catholic church. Today, Birmingham still hosts a Hungarian festival every August.



My Mom did not bake much but she loved cookbooks.  Her mother did, and then skipped a generation to her daughter, who does roll out this Hungarian nut bread every year with her sons!

     HUNGARIAN NUT ROLL

1. 1 envelope or cake yeast, 1/4 Cup warm milk, pinch of sugar
2. Dissolve above and let raise in a warm place
3. 1/2 lb. Butter, 4 egg yolks , 1 Cup half and half , 4 cups unsifted flour,1 tsp. salt, 3 tablesp. of sugar
4. Sift flour, salt and sugar;beat yolks, add cream.Melt butter and combine all ingredients of yeast mixture  flour mixture, eggs and cream .
5. Work together until mixture is well combined. Divide into 3 equal balls and set in fridge for several hours.
6. Roll each ball as thin ( but not too thin ) as pie crust. Spread with nut filling.

NUT FILLING FOR THE NUT ROLL

1 1/2 lbs. walnuts, ground

4 eggs whites , beaten stiff

1 cup sugar

grated rind of lemon

• After spreading the dough with filling, roll like you would jelly roll, not too tight. Place three rolls side by side in a pan about 13 1/2 inches long, 9 1/2 inches wide. Set in warm place. Let rise about two hours, brush with beaten egg and bake 40 - 40 45 minutes at 350 degrees. NOTE: I never did the egg whites or lemon rind - we either made the filling like a simple boiled sugar syrup with water and sugar and ground walnuts; also have done it with a teeny bit of milk heated with the nuts, sugar  & cinnamon to make a paste.          

note: This article /recipe first appeared 2011-12-12 @ Hungarian Family Record.