Kálvin tér: The Kecskemét Gate and the Apricot Brandy
Why is it significant?
In the middle of the traffic of Kálvin tér, find the Reformed church with the columned portico that looks like a small Greek temple, and then glance up the street behind it, Kecskeméti utca, where a stretch of the medieval town wall still peeps out between the houses.
Key Facts
| Place | Kálvin tér: The Kecskemét Gate and the Apricot Brandy |
|---|---|
| Address | Kálvin tér 7, 1091 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.48990, 19.06140 |
| Part of Walk | Coffee, Cake & Paprika: A Budapest Food Walk from Gerbeaud to the Great Market Hall |
| Generated | Generated |
In the middle of the traffic of Kálvin tér, find the Reformed church with the columned portico that looks like a small Greek temple, and then glance up the street behind it, Kecskeméti utca, where a stretch of the medieval town wall still peeps out between the houses. You are standing at one of the old doors of Pest.
Here stood the Kecskemét Gate, named after the market town on the Great Plain to the south-east. Through it came the carts and the herds that fed the city: wheat and melons, onions and paprika, wine, and droves of cattle and pigs heading for the slaughterhouses. The square kept its role as a crossroads long after the gate was demolished around 1800.
Kecskemét means one fruit above all: the apricot. The orchards of the sandy plain around it produce apricots that end up in jam, in pastries, and above all in barackpálinka, apricot brandy. Pálinka is the Hungarian fruit spirit, distilled from plums, pears, cherries, apricots or quinces, never from grain, and since 2004 European law has protected the name, so that only fruit brandy made in Hungary, plus apricot brandy from four Austrian provinces, may be called pálinka.
Hungarians take it seriously. It is drunk as a greeting, as a cure for a cold, as a digestive, and, in the countryside, as an answer to almost any question. Many families have a distiller in the village they trust, and a well-made pálinka should smell of fresh fruit, not of fire. Egészségedre, to your health, is the word you will need.
The church, finished in the first half of the nineteenth century, gave the square its present name, after the reformer John Calvin. Now cross over and turn into Ráday utca, the narrow street running south-east from the square, lined with restaurant terraces. It is time to talk about soup.