According to Schams there was a pervasive and penetrating stench in the poultry market (where weather casters continually pulled on the coats of passersby), and in the circle formed by carts crowds of people jostled one another. They were barely able to catch each other's words because of the ear-splitting musical-like din made by geese, ducks, chickens and pigs. In addition, their eyes were eaten away by the dust and their boots sank into the mud.

Further down, the "nauseating smell of food was carried by the wind" over the top of the parish church, while "disgusting wenches" in dirty clothes proffered suspicious- looking food in earthen vessels covered with rags. If the customer was not quick enough to pay, they were assaulted by a barrage of verbal abuse. 

Offering their merchandise with bellowing cries were miller women by the fence of the Piarist monastery and smoke-curers on the opposite side to the church. Circumspection was needed in the coal market (now Kálvin Square) lest one was run over and killed by a hawker's barrow. Any argument with the hefty country women was futile since - as Ignác Nagy aptly put it - as far as "swift-tonguedness" was concerned even Parisian fishwives could not compete with the archetypal market woman of Pest.  

Adalbert Müller painted a rather more cheerful picture of this same market in 1836. He arrived at the Customs House by boat and saw heaps of tobacco, rows of carts laden with sides of bacon and vessels filled with honey. "From the boat-bridge downwards until the end of the Danube bank stood hundreds of wagons, while by the quay boats both large and small floated in densely packed formation (as far as the eye could see)." There were melon, vegetable and fruit markets here; "sausages for frying were hung out by the thousand in portable slap-bang shops, and crabs were boiled on the spot while people walked up and down cracking them open like people would nuts in Germany".

However, the market inspectors (and the market police) were not at all as enthusiastic as this. In their view, the food market on the banks of the Danube was a "hovel" and a "den of rodents" with no proper drinking water. Market traders dishonestly profiteered while the "black butchers" cut up (under canvas) meat of dubious origin and odour. It was therefore no wonder that the capital (which was then preparing for its millennium celebrations), inspired by the feverish construction of market halls in the territory of the Monarchy, decided that in order to limit the "indecency that characterized markets" it would close down Budapest's 44 street markets and drive their eight thousand traders into modern market halls. Thus, in rapid succession market halls opened between 1896 and 1897 on Hold Street, on Rákóczi, Klauzál and Hunyadi squares, along with the Central Market Hall Number I on Sóháztelek behind Fővám Square.      

The opening of the latter caused a sensation; it was connected to the quay by an underground tunnel (so that the barges could be easily moored), and after the inaugural speech given by prime minister Dezső Bánffy, the first perishable goods train rolled into the building. 

However, the public proved to be less than grateful. People took one quick look at the steel structure of the market hall, designed by Samu Pecz ("the Les Halles in Paris is more imposing"), gazed admiringly at the Zsolnay tiles, and then lamented the loss of the old market atmosphere.   

The paper Vasárnapi Újság [Sunday Gazette] bemoaned the fact that in the market hall it was forbidden to hawk goods loudly, shout, sing, whistle or swear. According to Elek Magyar (known at the time as the Gourmet Master), goods became more expensive, the doctoring of foods was as rife as ever, and the market had lost its picturesqueness into the bargain. He also commented on how the dairy woman, the never-resting tub man from Kraina (offering chestnut and Veronese salami from trays hanging from his neck) and the Tót from Zólyom (selling Borovicka and strom-cock) had all become a thing of the past, as well as the Bosnian in wide trousers, the vendor woman from Budakeszi and the Swabian bread woman. Along with them disappeared Fish Square, the Green Courtyard with its coffee tavern called "8". The latter is named thus because the vegetable women were able to buy a huge coffee there for eight farthings, with cream (called ‘skin' by Pesters) said to have been as thick as a fur coat. In the view of journalists, the market hall was "an elemental blow dealt to Budapest".

So what could be said today? That the market hall is on its last legs? That our market culture has disastrously regressed and that we are light years away from having a true elite market (like La Boqueira in Barcelona, Rome's Campo dei Fiori or Vienna's Naschmarkt) even though of the market halls opened in the years of the millennial celebrations only the Central Market Hall preserves (to a certain degree) the traditional market atmosphere. The market hall on Hold Street survives on the business drummed up by buffets and cook-shops, and the building on Rákóczi Square lost its capacity to win back customers after the conflagration there in 1988. Elsewhere, "investors" cast a reproachful glance at the market on Hunyadi Square and Kaiser's supermarket chain (now Spar) which took over the market hall on Klauzál Square.   

 It is true, however, that the Central Market Hall was declared a listed monument and is equipped with floodlights and loudspeakers from which Kodály's well-known song occasionally resounds: "I went to market with tuppence". But what manner of scoter, goat or cock birds could we buy here with tuppence when the majority of the sales staff do not even know what a scoter is. Let alone throat sweetbread, quail, snipe, fresh savoury or chervil.

It's not as if they should be held accountable for not selling thirty different kinds of crab such as can be had at the Barcelona fish market (most of which Hungarian tradesmen have not even seen), but they could at least sell calf's tongue, ox chop, sturgeon, eel, corn salad, pumpkin flower or rhubarb.

Not so very long ago vegetables were sold in the so-called "golden stalls" by market gardeners who were famous throughout Central Europe. Only one of them is left now, Uncle Jani, but even he also gets his goods from wholesalers. Yet it was these self-same market gardeners who introduced leeks, aubergines and Kapia peppers into Hungary. They reclaimed the marshy lands in Csepel and along the Rákos Stream, and these lands could once be clearly recognised for their famous irrigation devices called ‘Bulgarian wheels'.

Instead, now we have garlands of garlic, "echte Ungarische" red pepper packaged in in little red-white-and-green bags, watered-down fake honey, dried bolete from Poland and Comecon shop windows dressed in Matyó folk patterns. On the upper floor you can buy ballpoint pens with stripping women dating back to the Kádár Era, and the stands pretending to be cook-shops sell fried Argentinian hake.
 

The fact that pumpkin flower can sometimes be purchased in the "poor men's stalls" if it is the season, that the odd puff-ball still appears at the weekend in the hen-run (towards the back of the Market Hall), that the dairy products of Imre Fuchs still have the taste of real milk and that in the basement nothing can suppress the subtle aroma of pickled cabbage from Vecsés (which is being perpetually opened up) is of scant consolation for those who yearn for ten kinds of lettuce and tomato and who wish to make loach soup in the Carnival season. "We are living in the portentous era of the destruction of tastes," declared some years ago Luciana Castellina, the president of the European Parliament's cultural commission. According to a recent American study, the food manufacturers of today are able to produce one hundred different products from eight basic materials, and there is one ideal consumer out of one hundred different shoppers who can be fed anything. "Wherever you travel in the world, go to the market", says Alain Ducasse, the father of French chefs, "and you will gain an immediate understanding of the country and the cultural level of its inhabitants." The Central Market Hall provides a picture of our country. We can only hope that the tourists who come to Hungary are the types with a less than thorough insight into such things.           

10 BUDAPEST MARKETS

1. Central Market Hall
District IX, Vámház körút 1-3
A museum and tourist attraction. Farmers on weekends only, fruit and vegetables, József Gál's butcher's shop (seasoned tenderloin steak, mutton, lamb, crackling pork scraps). Passable fish (fresh deliveries on Thursdays), an Asian shop, pickled cabbage from Vecsés sold in the basement. The rest is a rag fair even though the prestigious American gastronomy magazine Saveur listed it among Europe's top five markets.  

2. The Fény Street market
District II, Lövőház utca 12
(On the triangle formed by Lövőház, Fény, and Retek streets.) Well laid out, airy and classic market space. From an architectural and waste management perspective the most modern (offal is stored in cooled larders so there is no perceptible "market smell"). Reliable standard of vegetables and fruit. Two kinds of bakery and every taste in cheese is catered for, with a ham shop that can be counted as a rarity. Close to one hundred stalls for farmers. Fény Street boasts one of the best tea specialists in the capital.   

3. The Óbuda market
District III, Kórház utca 37-41
In the heart of Óbuda, behind Flórián shopping centre. Many people regard it as Budapest's best market. Chiefly famous for its butchers and stall-keepers, and unique in the fruit and vegetables its farmers offer. Opposite the fish shop there are excellent dairy products. Lángos (deep-fried dough) with dill yoghurt sold next to the Örök rangadó [Eternal Game] drinkery. Opposite is the Pléh drinkery.

4. The Csörsz Street bio market
District XII, Csörsz utca 18 (Open on Saturdays from 6.30 am to 1.00 pm)
Intimate atmosphere, run away prices, but with seasonal vegetables that count as a rarity (water horseradish, wild ruccola, zucchini flower, 6-8 types of apples), "mangalica" pork chop at the butcher's, tasty spiced cheese and real sour cream from the dairyman.

5. The Lehel Street market
District XIII, Váci utca 7-15
A cemetery stood on the site of the market in Angyalföld until 1890. Wide selection, bustling market atmosphere. Hungarian poet Zoltán Zelk even wrote a poem about it, entitled "Lehel Square". The market's "modernisation" began in 2000, and László Rajk's goods-train shaped edifice is controversial even today. The vegetable and fruit selection is passable. Although the Lehel Square market proclaims itself as "the cheapest market in the capital", it is not obvious.

6. The Bosnyák Square market
District XIV, Csömöri utca 9-11
Behind Bosnyák Square, by the No. 7 bus stop. Finally some real stall-keepers and farmers. Mushroom sellers, bee-keepers, vegetable and fruit producers, butchers, bakers, florists, sausage fryers, seasonal and handicraft products. Atmospheric with colourful, bustling and jovial conversation. Because of the draw around the Mundo City Centre, the future of the Zugló market is uncertain. 

7. The Fehérvári Road market
District XI, Kőrösi József utca 7-9
After a temporary decline because of the metro construction, it is again a lively, busy market. Domestic small producers and special honey selection on the second floor. The best potato strudel in town is sold here. 

8. The Újpest market
District IV, Szent István tér 12
Two minutes from metro line 3's terminus in Újpest. A quality vegetable market with fresh, seasonal produce. Several cook's stalls.

9. The Kolosy Square market
District III, Kolosy tér 2
A picturesque mini market in the inner courtyard of a beautifully renovated house. Almost as expensive as the bio market on Csörsz Street but with a limited selection.

10. The Hunyadi Square market
District VI, Hunyadi tér, on the corner of Szófia and Eötvös streets
A dilapidated, dirty, "run down" market hall. This is how one would imagine some kind of crisis situation in Bangladesh. Horse sausage at the butcher's and in the Kofafaló (Market Gluttons) eatery (which serves as a second-hand bookshop, lottery ticket seller's and locksmith's in one), bean goulash is available. On Saturdays there is a lively bio market on the square under the supervision of a group named "The Market is our Treasure" (formed from the district's inhabitants and marketers). This civil organisation prevented the mayor of Terézváros from having an underground garage built under the square and thus saved the city centre's last open-air market.