What do Hungarians eat at the "beach"?

Hungary is landlocked. Their right-wing dictator in the 1920s and 30s called himself Admiral Horthy, but that’s because he had been in the Austro-Hungarian navy. Hungary lost its access to the sea (and a lot more of it's traditional St. Stephen's borders) in the 1920 treaty of Trianon after World War One, when Croatia was made part of Yugoslavia.

Perhaps it is this feeling of loss for their coastline that makes Hungarians crazy about water. From the baths (built by the Ottomans in their century and a half of ruling Hungary) to the thermal spas, swimming seems to be their favorite activity. We are now in the largest swimming hole, and largest lake in Europe, Lake Balaton.

It's not exactly a beach, but they call everything, including swimming pools, the beach. The most popular beachside treat is langos, which is a deep fried flatbread.

It most commonly is served with sour cream and cheese.

But you can get all kinds of toppings like Mexikoi, which has some type of red sauce, or salami and onions.

You would think langos would be good with sugar like a funnel cake but that isn’t too popular. For dessert they eat this cylindrical sweet bread called kurtoskalacs.

They roast it on a spit like this.

Then roll it in sugar, cinnamon...

To drink, like everywhere in Hungary, they love wine.

The promenade was lined with these little wine sellers. It was like Eger all over again but 250 km to the west.

To eat with the wine, since it is a lake, they fry fish.

But the favorite snack with wine is always these little toasts.

They usually just have onion, paprika, and some kind of fat (most likely lard); but we went with peppers and tomatoes too.

This is not for the beach, but it is a summer treat. It is mixed fruits cooked with cream or sour cream into a soup. Typically it is made only with sour cherries and called meggyleves. It is topped with whipped cream. It is not a dessert, it is a soup course.