Taste of Transylvania Festival Makes Its Debut in Hungary

The Taste of Transylvania gastronomic and cultural festival, which already has a long tradition in Transylvania, is being held in Hungary for the first time. The event will take place between March 27 and 29, at the Transylvanian section of the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum in Szentendre.

During the three-day festival, leading chefs from Transylvania and Hungary, as well as Transylvanian cooks, will showcase the region’s diverse gastronomic and cultural heritage. In addition to culinary experiences, concerts, book presentations, film screenings, and family programs will add color to the event, said Adorján Trucza, founder and director of Taste of Transylvania, at a press conference in Budapest on Thursday.

As he recalled, the festival has been held since 2022 in the open-air museum in Borospatak. The “flagship” of the festival remains Gyimes, but whatever can be brought over from there will be brought over, Trucza noted.

The main organizer said

their goal is to organize the largest Transylvanian-themed event in Hungary in 2026, showcasing the diversity of Transylvania through the five major Transylvanian cuisines (Hungarian, Saxon, Romanian, Armenian, and Jewish).

Miklós Cseri, director general of the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum (Skanzen) in Szentendre, recalled that the Transylvanian section of Skanzen was opened in the same year as the festival, and has since been visited by hundreds of thousands of people.

In addition to its built and material heritage, Skanzen has always placed great emphasis on the preservation of its intellectual heritage. The knowledge that can be observed in traditional gastronomy is still important today, in the age of additives, and this is closely linked to one of Skanzen’s slogans, sustainability, he noted.

Trucza highlighted the Örömfőzde (Joy Brewery) among the venues of Taste of Transylvania, where Transylvanian housewives will prepare traditional dishes, while Michelin-starred chefs will create contemporary dishes from the same ingredients.

He added

that there will be a total of 45 programs, including film and book presentations, concerts, and children’s programs, while 25 restaurants and pastry shops will offer their dishes, and numerous small producers from Transylvania will also bring their products to the festival’s gastro market.

Trucza spoke of one of his gastronomic role models, Ilonka Rozália, a housewife from Máréfalva known as Mama Róza, who is a regular participant in the Taste of Transylvania festivals.

Her recipe is used for making the Máréfalva lepény, a delicacy that originated as a Saxon dish and then spread throughout the Szeklerland, which is prepared differently in every village in Transylvania. Mama Róza’s version can of course be tasted at the festival, but until then, as a kind of preview, it will be available on Friday and Saturday at the Vineta bar in Budapest.

Via MTI; Featured image: Facebook/Székely Falat

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