Romanian holiday

It was after my second trek up to the ‘telephone booth’ that I gave up any attempt to make contact with the outside world. It was a 15-minute walk out of the village, trudging down the road through snow before taking a turn across a field and leaping over the narrowest part of a river. Footprints suggested I was on the right path and then, a few hundred yards further up the steep hill, I spotted the ‘booth’. There was a large log and - a few feet in front of it -a small clearing in the snow.

"That is the booth," 25-year-old Gabor Bone, the village guide had told me. "Stand there, hold your phone up and you might get a signal."

Well, I got the vaguest of signals, just enough to send one text before hurrying back down the hill. With temperatures hovering around freezing and light fading, a warm fire, a cup of tea and the promise of freshly baked polenta cake was a more attractive proposition than sending or receiving messages.

As I walked back down the hill I could see the houses of the village of Zalánpatak snaking their way down the road. Plumes of smoke rose through the chilly air and the only noises were the occasional dog’s bark and the sound of wood being chopped.

The village is in the heart of Transylvania, in northwest Romania. A four-hour drive from the airport of Tîrgu Mureș had taken me through achingly pretty countryside, dense forests and villages where the idea of a tarmac road is as alien as a fridge freezer or a supermarket – although you can see the odd satellite dish gazing up from a few ancient houses.

It’s a place that appeals to people who want to see mother nature at the heart of things. One such person is HRH The Prince of Wales. And it’s his house that I’m hurrying to through the crisp evening air for that much-needed cup of tea.

The Prince spoke out in the late 1980s about the planned destruction of rural villages in Romania by the country’s then ruler, Nicolae Ceausescu. After the dictator was deposed in 1989 and the savage era of communism had passed, the Prince – who is a patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, which works to save and restore villages in Romania – set out to buy a house in one such village.

With the help of a Transylvanian count named Tibor Kálnoky, he found a run-down farmhouse with several outbuildings in the village of Zalánpatak. Having restored the property using traditional techniques and local materials, the Prince now uses it for the occasional private holiday, renting out the rooms as a guesthouse the rest of the time. It has become popular with visitors for all sorts of outdoor activities, including walking and horse riding, particularly in the spring, when the unspoilt landscape is filled with wild flowers.

An inscription on a large wooden beam in the cosy sitting room (formerly a stable) attests to the project. The house was ‘restored by Tibor Kálnoky in 2009 for The Prince of Wales,’ it reads in Hungarian. From the Middle Ages until after the First World War this area was part of Hungary, and the language still dominates locally.

 Tea – with a slice of deliciously nutty, crunchy polenta cake– is taken with the count. “When you build or do major work to a house here, you always document it on the main beam,” he says.

That industry continued up to the early 20th century when war and communism saw the family exiled to America and Europe. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the count managed to reclaim some of his family’s land. “Our return was emotionally driven,” he says. “We don’t have enough assets to make a living so we run guesthouses and that helps to generate an

It is seeing this local economy at work that arouses the environmental passions of The Prince of Wales. ‘We cannot go on endlessly prevaricating by finding one sceptical excuse after another for avoiding the need for the human race to act in a more environmentally benign way,’ he writes in his book Harmony, a copy of which I spy in my bedroom.

And working with nature is part of everyday life in Zalánpatak, especially when it comes to the food. As it is the depths of winter, we eat soup made with stored carrots, some flavoured with horseradish, then a drink of salted cabbage water is offered to wash down small baked potatoes. During the day, a group of women from the village prepare bread: large white loaves and sweetened brioche-style bread flavoured with walnuts or poppy seeds that are baked in an outdoor oven.  They also grill cakes made from dough wrapped round wooden pipes and covered in sugar.

But aside from the vegetables, bread and cakes, there is one central ingredient. “In Romania we eat three types of meat,” the count explains, “pork, pork and pork.”

 So at dawn and under the watchful eye of the village mayor, Jozsef Kasleder – alongside his 82-year old father Istvan – we witness the killing of a pig. Before a long day of sausage making gets under way, there is the handing round of fiery plum brandy, a drink that seems to sustain the village men at various moments throughout the entire day.

There is word that people are cutting down trees in the forest without a permit. Someone mentions the problem of bears coming into the village and killing their livestock, and then everyone gets stuck into a discussion about the price of a pig.

In the tiny kitchen of the mayor’s house, meanwhile, five women are bustling around tables and a wood-fired stove. Into a large bubbling cauldron goes pork meat – including lungs, heart, liver and kidneys – to make a sausage to be eaten at that night’s dinner alongside traditional black pudding. Back in the yard, layers of pig skin and the trotters are salted before being left to rest in a large bucket for several weeks, at which point they are ready to be smoked.

That night everyone involved in the day’s work gathers back at the Prince’s guesthouse for a dinner, the mayor seated at the head of the table. We eat soup flavoured with pork meatballs and brain, then fat, juicy sausages with pickled gherkin on the side.

I ask if everyone really does own a cow in the village. “I have 41,” states the mayor. The ladies at the table stick their hands up, “I have five,” says one. “I have three,” offers another. “Eight,” shouts a lady next to me. “But I have eight cows, three pigs, three piglets and nine hens,” says another. Cue much laughter and more plum brandy.

If only I could text my friends to tell them all about it. But it’s too late and far too cold for a foray up to the ‘telephone booth’.

This article is from Waitrose Kitchen, p.70-76 February 2012