In Southern German regions, it’s not uncommon to see people drinking beer for breakfast. In parts of Hungary, pálinka is, or has been, the breakfast of the dawning day – the “coffee of the poor,” as it was evidently termed by some in the early 1900s.

You see this retained in language, in the expression: Pálinkás jó reggelt!, which translates variously as “A pálinka good morning,” or “Good morning with pálinka!”

Naturally, there are explanations for this early, to American palates nearly inconceivable practice. Balázs quotes a handful of folk sayings:

In the morning, wine sleeps and shouldn’t be woken, so pálinka must be drunk.

or alternately:

Before wine, pálinka, then a bit of sausage, just so the coffee won’t hurt later.

A confession: When visiting a friend for a Transylvanian wedding, we were on hand for the arrival of a close Hungarian friend of the groom and groom’s brother. Maybe 10 in the morning. We gathered underneath the shade of the walnut tree to welcome him, and the bottle of brandy came out, glasses were filled, and the friend’s arrival was toasted. We smiled, and I surreptitiously poured the spirits into the grass.

But I was young. Today I would have wished them a Pálinkás jó reggelt! and let the wine sleep in a little longer.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 1:41 pm and is filed under hungary, language, romania, travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.