Hunglish.orgA most excellent Christmastime tradition in Hungary is the szaloncukor, a shiny foil-wrapped bit of chocolate and ... something.
Written by Scott Savoie
One of the unique holiday treats in Hungary is the „szaloncukor.” Literally this translates as „Salon Sugar,” so you can translate it, but it doesn’t make sense.
These are brightly packaged candies -- The only thing they have in common is the packaging.
-- that come in too many categories to classify. Inside the paper, there is usually a chocolate thing and inside that is anybody’s guess.
That is part of the fun.
Sometimes the package tells you what’s inside, but sometimes there appears to be inconsistency.
For example, I hate fake coconut chocolates but I love vanilla covered in chocolates.
Both of those flavors might be represented by a light blue. The insides would both be white. Otherwise identical except in tastes.
Also, I love chocolate covered cherries but hate the ones that have a liquor center -- especially some sort of state bourbon rotgut. In szaloncukor world, these two treats are packaged pretty much the same.
They could of course label them, but then that would be straightforward and thus not Hungarian.
In the ’States, the only thing similar was a Whitman’s Sampler. They weren’t brightly packaged, but every bite was a crapshoot. You could never be sure which ones were going to be duds.