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Recipe of the week: Rigó Jancsi cake
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There once lived a man, who was the leader of a gypsy band. He was very successful in the music world, however, he became famous through a scandalous love affair and the cake, with which he wanted to seduce a woman. This is the story of Rigó Jancsi and the cake that is sweet as love.
According to cultura.hu, János Rigó was born into a poor gypsy family in Pákozd. He loved music and started playing the violin at a young age. His career is dreamlike: he started at the bottom of the band hierarchy and slowly made his way upwards until he became the leader of the gypsy band. The band first toured Hungary and then the pubs, restaurants of trans-border regions.
This is how the man, who everyone called Jancsi Rigó (Jancsi is the nickname for János), got to Paris in 1896, where he entertained the guests of Alhambra and Restaurant Payard. The show was visited by Prince Chimay and his beautiful wife one night. Jancsi noticed that his music and more so his personality impressed Princess Clara Ward. Being a fine-looking and talented man, he was used to women admiring him, but that night was different.
The princess became a regular guest at the performances of the gypsy band, they met more and more until they fell in love. The romantic escape of the princess and the fiery-eyed musician was the greatest sensation of 1896. They both divorced so that they could remarry. The press loved their relationship and frequently reported about their life. Their romance was a real phenomenon that was even made eternal by painters and caricaturists.
Their fame was still unbroken in 1905, when they visited the Rémy (later Nemzeti) Hotel, and the clever confectioner of the hotel took advantage of their visit. Legend has it that Jancsi asked the confectioner to make an irresistible cake that would dazzle Clara. This is how the chocolatey, sweetly creamy cake was created. It is believed that Jancsi presented the cake to his love with following sentence: “Taste it: it’s brown like my skin and sweet like your heart”.
