That’s why cod replaced bream, carp and sea bream in Balaton buffets

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Contents

Marketing done well Hungarians have almost no domestic fish left

Cod, although many people think it is Balaton, actually comes from the sea
This fish was introduced to Hungary in the 1960s, but was originally called pike
The newspaper highlighted how similar it was to more expensive racks

Marketing done well

It was introduced by fish marketing companies in the 1960s, and by the 1970s and 1980s it had become inevitable. The state did everything it could to make it acceptable to guests who were distrustful of frozen sea fish, so marketers at the time kept silent about its origins. Even its name was changed, because when translated into Hungarian, heck was originally sea pike.

This delicacy was served on the beaches and in cafeterias at Lake Balaton as early as the 1960s and 1970s/Photo: Riniger

János Rácz writes in an article published by Magyar Nyelv that the word heck may have Russian or English origins.

“The employees of the company that imported the fish into Hungary probably misheard the name. Considering the early stages of fish imports and the typical dependence of that era on the USSR in various fields, the employees of the large socialist company Terimpex probably first thought of the Cyrillic name of the species. Since Terimpex was primarily a foreign trade company of food and animals, the English name of the fish hake (…) may also be well known and commonly used in international trade (…) The name fish can be explained from the Old English Haki word “hook”, which refers to the needle-pointed teeth, jaws”.

Although Hake was initially unfamiliar to Hungarians, it quickly became one of our favorite fish dishes/Photo: Zoltán Fortepan Szalay

Hungarians have almost no domestic fish left

The USSR came about because in the 1960s, the demand for Hungarian fish in Western Europe was so great that there were almost no Hungarian customers left and the prices were very high. Hard currency was more important than domestic demand.

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A foreign trade mission began to look for places where cheap potka could be used as a substitute for expensive carp, catfish, and even more expensive walleye. Substitutes were first discovered in the Soviet Union, then in Bulgaria. Esti Hírlap also wrote about this.

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“To make up for the shortage and improve supply, HALÉRT is looking for new sources of purchases. He managed to buy 45 truckloads of cheap sea fish from the Soviet Union and 27 from Bulgaria. Quick-frozen sea fish is perfect for frying. Soviet horse mackerel is similar to bream, except that it has no tendons, while Bulgarian horse mackerel also competes with sea bass. So far, 30 truckloads of imported sea fish have been put on the market, with horse mackerel costing 16 forints per kilogram and 18 forints per hectoliter.

Hake is a marine predator whose lesser known Hungarian names are pike, sea pike or hake/Photo: Shutterstock

Later, they were brought frozen in large quantities from Argentina to Hungarian buffets and national fish frys. However, first the vast customer base, which was distrustful of the new taste, had to be convinced: newspapers could not help but emphasize how similar the taste and texture of cod or sea pike were to the more expensive pike.