Fascism and Cookery?

Ok, I have only the vaguest idea about Hungarian politics, other than you need to throw your British notions of Left and Right out of the window and start again. However, when I found a newsletter in my post-box from ‘Jobbik’ I knew enough to this is a far right political group – like the national front maybe, or a little English Defence League? Well I thought I’d browse through this little community newsletter to see what the it contained. Not that my Hungarian is good enough to read it, and I don’t really want to spent time learning Hungarian from a far right newsletter – it might be awkward at parties if someone asks me to speak Hungarian and words pop into my head like ‘oh er true Hungarians, no homeless, no gypsies, blah blah blah’.

So what’s its in this newsletter apart from the words? Well lots of flags, check. Photo of a homeless person, check. Blonde girl in vaguely nazi uniform, check. Bunch of meat-heads in balaclavas, check. Lots of very white, very blonde children going to a school, check. Christian imagery, check (guess they cross out the bits of the bible where Jesus says treat your fellow man equally and live forgiveness). Recipe for chicken dish, check. Whooah…wait a minute…recipe for chicken? And on the next page a word-puzzle? And on the next page a joke-page?

That’s right folks, the ‘friendly’ face of fascism has a recipe for ‘csirkecombe szekely modra’. And a word puzzle and joke-page! What next, the Jobbik Cookery book? What if I like one of the recipes, should I keep this leaflet in the kitchen? I don’t want to know what the jokes or word-puzzle clues are (Hmmm ‘Three across ‘misunderstood short German guy’) .

And finally, finally the back page has some shops who obviously sponsored the newsletter. So there’s an advert for a flower shop (?!) An advert for a second-had clothes shop (One of those British Flag second-hand clothes shops ???!!). An advert for a Solarium (??!! Get a tan, just don’t go too brown right??), and finally a convenience store that’s actually called Jobbker Non-stop. Great, a right-wing place to go get your Turo Rudi. Just what Budapest needs.

If I find myself round someone’s house and they offer me Csirkecombe szekely modra (chicken-leg something something) I won’t be able to help wondering where they got it from…