British Hypermarket Exposes Age-Old Hungarian Lie

If Hungarians sometimes have a reputation for not being the most frank and reliable people on Earth, one small reason is the decades-long conspiracy involving túró, the roughly-processed curd cheese found in Magyar dishes ranging from spicy appetizer spreads to pastries to the ubiquitous túró rudi, a petite, chocolate-covered tube of túró often jazzed-up with a dollop of fruit jam or nut paste.

The problem is well known to anyone who has lived in or traveled to Hungary and has a taste for dairy, or just a hunger for the truth. Every time you ask a Hungarian what the English translation for túró is, they say "cottage cheese." Yet any person from any country where actual "cottage cheese" is made will tell you this is a foul and monstrous lie, even if, like someone trapped in an Orwellian nightmare, the Faithful Adherents of the True Cheese are unable to offer any physical evidence for their obviously factual and just claim. (Our academic-looking Magyar-Angol dictionary goes so far as to define the túró rudi as a "chocolate-covered cottage-cheese snack.") Perhaps the problem is that the word túró is derived from the Greek word for cheese (tyro), suggesting that "cottage cheese" is just some insignificant Johnny-come-lately cheese, as opposed to the real thing. But it is still a lie, and a terrible, hurtful lie at that, because it's just not the same stuff at all.

Yet now, after years of gritting our teeth at our inability to challenge this horrible injustice, we are overjoyed to report that genuine cottage cheese is finally available in large quantities in Hungary, courtesy of those indefatigable fighters for truth and the hypermarket way, Tesco. That's right: for just Ft 225 (€.92) you can enjoy 200 grams of genuinely slimy, mouth-puckering cottage cheese, as well as all the delicious or revolting delicacies you can make with the soupy pellets. We bought two whole cases of it last weekend - a third for eating, a third for handing out to bedazzled friends, and a third for keeping in our pocket and stuffing in the face of anyone who ever again repeats this vile and corrosive falsehood within earshot of us.

So what should Hungarians say when asked what túró is? We suggest the following: "It's like what you call 'cottage cheese,' but slightly different."

How interesting - we'll try it. But just one order for now, and two forks, if you would be so kind...