Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is short stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you like paprika? I don't think I've ever tasted
Speaker 1: paprika enough to determine whether I like it or not. Really,
Speaker 1: all right, that surprises me. I've had goulash. I guess
Speaker 1: I've eaten Hungarian food, so I'm sure I have, but
Speaker 1: I've never been like, Yeah, I love paprika, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I love paprika. I love smoked paprika specifically. And this
Speaker 1: show is about paprika. And you mentioned Hungary and we'll
Speaker 1: get to why Hungary is known for paprika in a second.
Speaker 1: But it's actually the Hungarian word for pepper. It is
Speaker 1: from the and by the way, thanks to Patty Rasmuss
Speaker 1: in it how stuff works for this. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: comes from the Capsicum annum variety from the long hum family,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a pepper. It's a long, bright
Speaker 1: red pepper. And the flavor can be super hot or
Speaker 1: not that hot, hottish, it can be sweet, it can
Speaker 1: be smokey if it is indeed, you know, smoked over
Speaker 1: a fire, and a lot of the paprika. You'll see
Speaker 1: this is what you see. If you see the orangey
Speaker 1: red sprinkles on a deviled egg, that's paprika. Yes, for sure,
Speaker 1: it's huge in Central Europe, but Hungary is like you know,
Speaker 1: the you know, Studio fifty four of the paprika world.
Speaker 1: But it's also big in Spain and Portugal as well.
Speaker 1: And since you like it smoked, you would like the
Speaker 1: Spanish and Portuguese paprika, because they take for granted that
Speaker 1: paprika smoke so much so that a woman named Nancy Waldeck,
Speaker 1: who's a chef and cookbook author that the House of
Speaker 1: Works interviewed for this says that, like they don't even
Speaker 1: put it's smoked on the label. It's you just know
Speaker 1: what's smoked. Basically, Yeah, that's how smoked it is. It's
Speaker 1: so smoked. The reason that Hungary is known for it
Speaker 1: is because they really adopted it. It's not native to there,
Speaker 1: which is really surprising to me. It's actually native where
Speaker 1: you think it would be is Mexico and Central America.
Speaker 1: But it found its way to Hungary through the Balkans apparently,
Speaker 1: and it grew really really well there in abundance, and
Speaker 1: so it became sort of the national spice because it
Speaker 1: was so abundant. That was it obviously made it less
Speaker 1: expensive because there was so much of it, and at
Speaker 1: a time when spices were sometimes reserved for people that
Speaker 1: had more wealth, you could get paprika even if you
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of money. And so Hungary said,
Speaker 1: we are going to base everything we make almost off
Speaker 1: this stuff. Yeah. What's funny though, is like that the
Speaker 1: Nancy Waldeck points out that still it's even if you
Speaker 1: go to Hungary, it's basically pepri cash and goulosh or
Speaker 1: peprikosh and gulosh are the two main dishes that paprikas
Speaker 1: used it, although in the countryside they'll use it in
Speaker 1: like mushroom soup and some other stuff too, but it's
Speaker 1: still like the two main dishes anyone thinks of for
Speaker 1: paprika outside of deviled eggs. Yeah. Emily went to Hungary
Speaker 1: this year or late last year. Yeah, she went to Budapest.
Speaker 1: Her friend was working over there, so she had a
Speaker 1: kind of a free place to stay and she was
Speaker 1: up for an adventure and I was like, go have
Speaker 1: your adventure. She said, I wasn't asking, and I said fine,
Speaker 1: be that way, go to Hungary. Uh. And she had
Speaker 1: a great time and had tons of paprika. That's one
Speaker 1: of the coolest towns I've ever been to. You me
Speaker 1: and I went for New Year's one year was awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been there too. Uh. And our good friend Raymond
Speaker 1: the puppeteer is puppeting in Hungary right now. Oh man,
Speaker 1: a Raymond move. That's awesome. I hope, Emily says, because
Speaker 1: that's how you're supposed to. I wanted to and I
Speaker 1: was like, Josh, don't do it. Don't do it, just
Speaker 1: say Budapest. I came back from it saying that, and
Speaker 1: I got enough, like come on that. I'm just finally
Speaker 1: back to Budapest. All right. Should we take a break? Yeshack, chuck.
Speaker 1: I'm still laughing from one minute ago. Thank you too.
Speaker 1: I think it's very funny. It's very funny, so thank you.
Speaker 1: So um. I love this article says Paprika pride runs
Speaker 1: high and hungry again. Remember this is the national spice
Speaker 1: and there's a Paprika museum in the village of Roski
Speaker 1: and you can get basically if you go to Hungry
Speaker 1: h Nancy Waldeck says expect to see maybe twenty different
Speaker 1: kinds of paprika, not brands, like varieties of paprika on
Speaker 1: the shelves in any given grocery store. But despite there
Speaker 1: being so many, there's actually just four official grades. At least.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of different kinds, but there's grades as far
Speaker 1: as paprik is concerned. There's Special, Gourmet, Noble, and Rows,
Speaker 1: and those don't really give you any kind of indication
Speaker 1: of what paprika you're getting at all. Now. I think
Speaker 1: they just sort of break it up into how fine
Speaker 1: or course it is, and maybe whether it's sort of
Speaker 1: a milder win or a sweeter one or a hotter one. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. But so you've got special, which
Speaker 1: is very fine, sweet and mild. I think that's pretty
Speaker 1: much the paprika that you would get here in the
Speaker 1: United States, or that people would put on like their
Speaker 1: deviled eggs. Yeah, it's it's pretty mild. You don't want
Speaker 1: to blast people with the heat. So Gourmet is slightly course.
Speaker 1: I've never had course paprika, have you, No, I'd be
Speaker 1: very interested, and it can be hot or mild. Noble
Speaker 1: is a course grind, so not even slightly. Course, this
Speaker 1: is course, it's just basically a lump of paprika, I guess,
Speaker 1: and it tends to be light red. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what the taste can be, but then the rows is
Speaker 1: dark red and that one can be very hot. So
Speaker 1: if you see a dark red paprika and it says
Speaker 1: rose on the label before warned, yeah, it's um. It's
Speaker 1: got kind of a bell pepper taste. It is like
Speaker 1: a chili pepper in that it can be hot, but
Speaker 1: it's not a substitute and a recipe necessarily for chili powder. No,
Speaker 1: that's good. Like if you get a chili pepper powder,
Speaker 1: which is not chili powder. But if you get let's say,
Speaker 1: like a chipulta powder or a you know, any other
Speaker 1: specific pepper powder, than the paprika may be kind of similar.
Speaker 1: But if you just get chili powder, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if a lot of people know this, there's a
Speaker 1: variety of chilis and coumin and garlic a lot of
Speaker 1: times in it. That's like a powdered mix. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like seasoned salt basically, but the chili version of it. Sure,
Speaker 1: chili powder is right, Yeah, paprika's paprika. You can't even
Speaker 1: really compare it to chipole or anything like that. Is
Speaker 1: it's own thing, and so they how stuff works writers
Speaker 1: go to great pains to point out that if you
Speaker 1: have a recipe that calls for paprika, you have to
Speaker 1: use paprika for it. Don't don't try anything else, don't
Speaker 1: try anything funny, or the people from a house stuff
Speaker 1: works will come to your house and take all of
Speaker 1: your spices. And apparently it's the kind of spice you
Speaker 1: don't want to buy a ton of because it goes
Speaker 1: bad quicker than other spices because of these natural oils,
Speaker 1: and it's just gonna go bad sooner. So don't keep
Speaker 1: it near heat, keep it in a dark jar, in
Speaker 1: a cool place. And if you go to use paprika,
Speaker 1: if you don't use it much, and you go to
Speaker 1: use it like six months later and it is brown,
Speaker 1: then it's no longer paprika, and don't use it, right.
Speaker 1: But luckily it's so cheap you can just replace it
Speaker 1: pretty easily. It's not a big tragedy if it goes bad.
Speaker 1: The thing is is it's such a such a in
Speaker 1: the United States, especially such an innocuous, overlooked spice that
Speaker 1: I think this should be one of those impetuses where
Speaker 1: people go out and buy paprika and then start looking
Speaker 1: for recipes to use it in. Just try something new.
Speaker 1: This is a great opportunity to do that everybody totally.
Speaker 1: So you can try paprikash Goo losh. And then Nancy
Speaker 1: Waldeck says, try Romesco sauce, which is an old world
Speaker 1: sauce from Spain and Portugal. And we say, go forth,
Speaker 1: try something new, and I think, Chuck, that means that
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