Paprika: the red gold of Szeged and Kalocsa

About Paprika: the red gold of Szeged and Kalocsa

By the ULTIMATE Budapest Editorial Team

No spice is more Hungarian than paprika, the ground red pepper that colours goulash, pörkölt and halászlé. It is grown on the sunny southern plain around Szeged and Kalocsa, and in the 1930s it helped a Szeged scientist win the Nobel Prize.

From the Americas

Peppers came to Europe from the Americas and reached Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries. At first a plant of gardens and peasant kitchens, paprika became the national spice in the 19th century.

Szeged and Kalocsa

The two great paprika regions are around Szeged and Kalocsa, on the southern Great Plain, where long, sunny summers ripen the peppers. In autumn, strings of drying red peppers hang from houses. Both towns have paprika museums.

Hungarian paprika comes in eight official grades, from delicate to fiery.

Sweet or hot

Hungarian paprika is graded from special quality and delicate sweet to noble sweet (édesnemes), the most common, and hot (erős or csípős). Noble sweet is the everyday choice for goulash; hot is used sparingly.

Paprika and vitamin C

In Szeged in the early 1930s, Albert Szent-Györgyi found that paprika peppers were an exceptionally rich source of vitamin C, and used them to produce it in quantity. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937.

Our advice: buy paprika in the Great Market Hall, in sealed tins or bags, choosing “édesnemes” for cooking at home; keep it cool and dark, and add it off the heat so it does not burn.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Paprika: the red gold of Szeged and Kalocsa before you go.