Seated inside the arc of the Carpathian Mountains, Transylvania is a bucolic landscape of meadows, horse-drawn carts, ancient forests and alpine peaks. Culturally, it’s where Romanian, Hungarian, Saxon and Ottoman influences overlap to form today’s Transylvanian cuisine. The resulting food is deliciously striated – featuring apples and plums from Roman times, rich stews from Hungary, native herbs and wild caraway, and corn, vanilla and baking technique from the Ottomans and Saxons. We’ll taste and use them all on this exclusive-to-Milk Street trip that follows Christopher Kimball’s footsteps on a memorable trip he took with Milk Street friend, teacher and TV guest Irina Georgescu, who is also our guide for the week.
A James Beard award winning author and expert in Romanian food, Irina has designed a trip defined by the contemporary practices of traditional Transylvanian crafts. Expect a farm-to-table sensibility, fruit in your savory foods, herbs in your sweets, many kinds of pickles and an introduction to Romanian winemaking and brewing. We’ll visit renowned cheesemakers and homesteaders on a series of visits to Gastro Locals, a network of slow food restaurants and cooking schools in people’s homes; learn about Romanian wine, beer and brandy, and cook with Irina, one of our favorite cooking teachers. We keep the tour focused on food and culinary traditions, but we won’t miss the local landmarks everyone needs to see, like the region’s famous frescoed fortified churches, forests and working self-sufficient Saxon villages.
Accompanying Irina will be her long time colleague Szabolcs Tyukodi and, on the first departure in June, Milk Street’s April Dodd.
