Paprika

From Lonely Planet Eastern Europe's Hungary section:

The omnipresent seasoning in Hungarian cooking is paprika, a mild red pepper that appears on restaurant tables as a condiment besides the salt and pepper, as well as in many recipes

This seems to be written on the assumption that the average Anglophone traveller (LP's main audience) would not be at all familiar with paprika, which, if true, is quite surprising. (Even in Scandinavia, arguably the least culinary adventurous region of the world, it's been pretty standard for at least the last three decades.)

Any views?

I think everyone knows what paprika is, but it wouldn't normally be seen on tables here. And to tell you the truth, I don't remember seeing it on tables in Hungary, although it's been a long time since I was there. Standard in the US since sometime before WWII, I think.

I think it is interesting that it only mentions sweet paprika and not hot.

To me that statement comes from linguistic imperfection. While in many languages (including Hungarian) "paprika" means just bell pepper (capiscum), whether it's fresh, or dried, or powdered, it has been adopted in English only as powdered bell pepper.
OP, if you are Norwegian you probably call it "paprikapulver" (I'm assuming it's the same as in Swedish), but, the same translation in English, pepper powder, would be misleading, which leads to the explanation as in LP guide book, what paprika is.

And, of course, as StanInM pointed out, paprika comes in different verieties, from mild to hot.

I think it is interesting that it only mentions sweet paprika and not hot.

I'd say it's only comparatively recently (in the US at least) that anyone outside of serious foodies has been aware of the existence of hot paprika, much less of smoked paprika, which is more Spanish than Hungarian.

I found an interesting report from 2000 about an emerging paprika industry in Australia. The background includes;
>Historically, Hungary has produced the high quality condiment paprika required [by the marketplace], however, exports have declined significantly over the last 10 years. This is partly the result of heavy metal contamination caused by air pollution and bad publicity because of some Hungarian companies selling adulterated paprika. At the end of 1994 the Hungarian authorities had to destroy approximately 25,000 tons of adulterated paprika. Exports decreased significantly, with the Hungarians exporting virtually no condiment paprika to their traditional customers Czechoslovakia, Japan and Germany by 1994. The Hungarian research organisations tried to restore the reputation of their product by producing the famous paprika cultivars in overseas countries such as Israel, South Africa and now in Australia.

In 1994, there was a serious issue with Hungarian paprika being adulterated with lead oxide. It made the paprika redder and added weight to it. It also caused a lot of lead poisoning in people. A third of paprika samples tested were found to have lead. That would, indeed, rather put people off using Hungarian paprika.

The "hot" Hungarian paprika that I've had, while hotter than the sweet, is not hot by contemporary US standards. I think it's fair enough to describe all paprika (at least to judge by what I've had) as "mild".

nutrax, I'm not sure how serious a foodie I was in 1973, but I know that I had already been aware of hot and sweet paprika when I went to Budapest in that year. Smoked red pepper I don't remember seeing until the 1990s, when I got some that was imported from Syria, under the name Aleppo pepper.

I don't think I as particularly aware of pprikaaa-s anything other than the red stuff you sprinkle on deviled eggs--but I do have to add that Eastern European immigrants and their food were not common here.

We have paprika in the UK but it's not really used as a condiment in the way that is suggested in Hungary. I remember going to Germany as a teenager and buying some crisps only to find they were paprika-flavoured - that is unheard of here, but very common in Germany I think. We use paprika in the UK but I think the easiest way to summarise it is to say we use it in cooking, as in during the cooking process. I don't think we really sprinkle it on much (except the old-fashioned devilled eggs mentioned above).

Thanks for the replies all.

@fieldgate: I get your point, but the way I read the text, it says that the paprika itself is used in cooking, whereas paprikapulver is what appears as condiment on restaurant tables. No?

W.

I don't think the text says that, mzungu.

In any case, Hungarians use both capsicum peppers and paprika powder in cooking. So do Americans, and I bet Brits and Aussies.

walkingmzungu #8,
It's used in both ways. You can use it in cooking to spice up the dish, or you can add it to your goulash you've been served at a restaurant, like you'd use salt or ground pepper.

I also use it both ways. There are a few recipes I always use it for. I have some smoked paprika that I got for a particular recipe but it has a very distinctive flavor that isn't very versatile as far as I'm concerned. It can't be used in place of regular paprika for the most part.

I think that when I went to Hungary at the age of 15, was the first time I'd particularly come across paprika and been conscious of it, although I did know vaguely what it was. There and at that time, anyway, tables in restaurants (at least in the few we were in) had salt and paprika instead of salt and pepper, which seemed very exotic to me at the time.

Do people outside the US say paPREEka or PAHpreeka? I think Americans tend to say the first.

@VinnyD

PA-pree-ka in all Scandinavian countries. (Pa-PREE-ka sounds to me like a wannabe female latino pop star.)

W.

Sorry. I meant to ask about English-speaking countries outside the US. I know it's PA prika in Hungarian, in which all words are stressed on the first syllable.