While very few people in the U.S. will have heard of flodni, in Budapest their acclaim probably couldn’t be much bigger. There, flodni are known as one of the city’s traditional Jewish pastries, and they’re so popular that you’ll find them in nearly every good bakery and café. While Jewish food might not seem like it would be all that important in present-day Hungary, before the Holocaust nearly a quarter of Budapest’s population was Jewish. And like so many Jewish foods in Hungary, flodni have been widely integrated into everyday eating for folks of all backgrounds for hundreds of years.
Many local Hungarians here in town—both Jewish and Christian—have commented on how excited they are to see them at the Bakehouse. Over the years, we’ve even had a couple of folks who have teared up just at the sight of the flodni—memories of one’s grandmothers’ baking can make a big mark on someone’s soul. A few years ago, flodni made Tablet’s list of “100 Most Jewish Foods!”
What is Flodni?
Flodni are sweets that would have been baked in this part of the world for centuries, long before chocolate came back to Europe from the Americas over 400 years ago. For those without Hungarian roots, flodni are inch-thick squares, with equal layers of ground poppy seeds, chopped apples, and toasted walnuts all sandwiched between two sheets of lightly sweetened, slightly crumbly, butter pastry. (Given the rules of keeping kosher, it’s likely that flodni might originally have been made with goose fat instead of butter so they could be eaten after meat meals.) The Bakehouse’s Flodni are seasoned with honey, fresh orange zest, lemon zest, Red Flame raisins, vanilla, and cinnamon. They’re sweet, but not too sweet, both light and bright at the same time.
The pastry crew cuts them into smallish squares that are pretty much perfect for an afternoon cup of coffee or tea. They make a great accompaniment to your morning cappuccino. Purim is over now, but they’re often featured at Purim festivals in Budapest.
What Makes Flodni Special
Budapest food blogger Eszter Bodrogi wrote:
Warning! Flódni is very addictive, you simply can’t stop eating it. Once you taste it, you’ll immediately forget the hard work and effort you’ve devoted to its preparation. Making flódni is very time consuming, but it’s worth your time once a year because it’s so abundant that by serving it you can give enough to eat to the whole family and friends.
The good news for us is that the pastry crew at the Bakehouse is doing all the work for us. All we have to do is eat them. If you want added incentive, Bodrogi adds that “Flodni contains every ingredient that might bring health and affluence for the new year according to the folk tradition.” Writing in Tablet, Ráchel Raj, a Hungarian baker famous for her flodni, reports that:
The key to the cake is its harmony. The fillings don’t overwhelm one another. Everything serves a purpose: The poppy seed offers an earthiness; the walnuts, a sweetness; the apples, a tartness. And the plum adds flavor. Together, they form a unified whole.
A Record-Setting Pastry
Back in 2012, Raj organized a festival at which the world record for flodni was set: 1600 servings were given out from a table that stretched nearly 75 feet. The announcer of the event pointed out that all the flodni had been stacked up they would gave reached 300 feet towards the sky, which Raj added would have been as high as the Hungarian parliament! We haven’t reached that level (yet) here in Ann Arbor, but we are baking them every weekend for the rest of the month of March! If you’re looking for a great new sweet with a superb story to go with it, ask for a taste next time you stop in at the Bakeshop.
In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.
Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.
One of Zingerman’s Guiding Principles is being an active part of the community and in 1988, Zingerman’s was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a food rescue program that delivers over 5 million pounds of food each year to the hungry residents of Washtenaw county. Every year Zingerman’s donates 10% of its previous years profits to local community organizations and non-profits. Ari has served on the board of The Ark, the longest continuously operating folk music venue in America.
Over the decades, the Zingerman’s founding partners have consistently been the recipients of public recognition from a variety of diverse organizations. In April 1995, Ari and Paul were awarded the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award. In 2006, Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2007, Ari and Paul were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Cheese Society in 2014. And Ari’s book, Building a Great Business was on Inc. magazine’s list of Best Books for Business Leaders.
Notwithstanding the awards, being engaged on a daily basis in the work of 10 businesses and 21 partners, writing books on business and in-depth articles on food for the Zingerman’s newsletter, Ari finds time to be a voracious reader. He acquires and reads more books than he can find room for. Ari might soon find himself the owner of the largest collection of Anarchist books in Ann Arbor outside the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan library!
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