Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, is well-known for its vibrant food scene. From traditional Hungarian dishes to international cuisines, the city offers a wide range of culinary delights. But amidst all the options, there is one place that stands out as a magical food haven: Budapest's food markets. These food markets, also known as "piac" in Hungarian, are a haven for food lovers. The most famous one is the Great Market Hall, located in the heart of Budapest. Built in the late 19th century, this beautiful architectural masterpiece is not only a market but also a cultural landmark.

Colonel rebel mascot

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Built in the late 19th century, this beautiful architectural masterpiece is not only a market but also a cultural landmark. Inside the Great Market Hall, one can find a vast array of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, spices, and other local products. It's a feast for the senses, with the vibrant colors and smells of the market filling the air.

The colonel and the Rebels in ’36-’37

Published 6:00 am Sunday, November 1, 2015

Ed Walker’s last team at Ole Miss made history with the nation’s first flight by a college team. Bruiser Kinard, Ed Walker and Ray Hapes paused at the door of American Airlines flagship “Maryland” to wave to reporters before leaving Memphis for Philadelphia for a game with Temple.

By Jack Mayfield

Last week I gave you some historical information on the naming of the Ole Miss athletic teams in 1929 when our teams were nicknamed the “Mississippi Flood.” The name did not catch on with the students or anyone else. Sportswriters, students, alumni and friends of the University of Mississippi reverted back to the old nickname, the “Red and Blue.”

In the school year of 1935-1936, Ole Miss had a very successful football program. They were invited to play Catholic University of Washington in the New Year’s Day 1936 Orange Bowl. The Catholic team beat Ole Miss 20 to 19.

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During the 1936-37 football season, Dr. David G. Sansing writes in his book, “The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History,” when an unimaginative sportswriter referred to the Ole Miss football team as the ‘Mudcats,’ the student newspaper decided it was time for another contest and a new name.” On May 2, 1936, The MISSISSIPPIAN staff started a contest to rename the Ole Miss athletic squads. “The Mississippi Flood doesn’t fit” was a headline on the front page of the campus weekly paper. The reporter states, “Some particular name to catch the public eye and fancy is essential. Ole Miss had made rapid stride during the past season on the gridiron. Further improvement will be shown during 1936. To further publicize the team, it is necessary that a proper nickname be applied to the school’s athletic squads.” The contest failed to provide a new nickname for the team. Later, at the instigation of Coach Ed Walker; Judge William Hemmingway, chairman of the athletic association; D. L. Fair, president of the alumni association; J.K. Hamm, alumni secretary and athletic business manager; Tex Nelson, captain of the 1935 football team; Lyle Bates, president of the ASB for the 1935-36 session; Maj. Calvin Weeks; Lake Robinson, Martin Miller, and L.A. Smith Sr. met to consider a new nickname. The 600 suggestions and ballots were reduced to 40 and the list given to the committee. Of these, all but five were discarded and then sent to 42 prominent sports writers throughout the South.

The sports writers were to name their first, second and third choices. Twenty-one of the sports writers responded and their votes were as follows: 18 votes for the Rebels, two to the Raiders, and one to Ole Miss. The other two nicknames were the Stonewalls and the Confederates. The Alumni Association members called for a vote of the committee. They then approved the name for the Ole Miss athletic squads. It would be the Ole Miss Rebels. To go along with the nickname of the Rebels, a mascot was also chosen. The new mascot would be Colonel Rebel. The 1937 yearbook has the first drawing of the Colonel Rebel mascot. The name of the annual yearbook was also changed to “The Rebel Number.”

The artist of the drawing of Colonel Rebel is unknown; however, it’s been suggested it was drawn by Billy Hix, who was art editor of the annual that year. Later, Carl Coers, the owner of a clothing and bookstore in the Student Union, wrote to the company that supplied his decals and pennants. He explained the new nickname and the first Colonel Rebel. They sent him several drawings, one of which was a little Southern colonel who leans on his walking cane while whistling Dixie. A number of years later, John Chase the cartoonist for the New Orleans ITEM, sent a drawing to Jeff Hamm, the business manager of the athletic department. He said the caricatures made the colonel seem he was still suffering from Appomatox. He thought his drawing gave the Colonel “more vigor and fire in his eyes.” In 1946, the male Ole Miss students started wearing large black hats and string ties to the games to model themselves after Colonel Rebel’s wardrobe. Dr. Sansing writes in his history of Ole Miss, “Blind Jim (who I wrote about a few weeks ago) may have been the model for Colonel Rebel who first appeared on the cover of the yearbook in 1937.” The late Frank Everett, of Vicksburg and a longtime friend and alumni of the university, was Sansing’s source for this fact. Blind Jim was known for his large-brimmed black hats and at times a string tie. Only the artist of Colonel Rebel knew for sure if he was the model. In an article in the May 2, 1936, issue of the MISSISSIPPIAN, a staff reporter states, “Blind Jim is about to become famous. A recent questionnaire sent to the publicity department asks information about the official Ole Miss mascot. Without doubt, Jim is the one.” Jack mayfield is a historian and Oxford resident. Contact him at [email protected].

Rebel Yell Over Mascot at Ole Miss

On autumn weekends, a Southern ritual plays out under the arching magnolias and oaks on the University of Mississippi campus: Alumni congregate by the thousands in “The Grove” before home football games, here to enjoy the deviled eggs and good cheer as the university band, “the Pride of the South,” blares a rousing version of “Dixie.”

And they come to cheer Colonel Rebel.

The life-size mascot -- a white-whiskered, hatted gentleman who looks much like Col. Sanders of fried-chicken fame -- works the crowd, shaking hands and posing for photos. But this season, the colonel has become a matter for passionate discussion among Ole Miss students and alumni, and for debate throughout Mississippi.

“The whole issue is that the colonel portrays a plantation owner,” said Andy Prefontaine, whose son is a 1999 graduate. The Indiana businessman believes that as a reminder of the university’s troubled past -- it was, and some say still is, a bastion for Mississippi’s white establishment -- Colonel Rebel can only hamper efforts to recruit black athletes.

“Look at Walter Payton,” said Prefontaine, citing as his example one of the greatest running backs in football history. “He’s from Mississippi, and he played at Jackson State.”

This year, the university administration decided to put the colonel on a short leash and seek a replacement. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, one of the state’s most influential newspapers, jocularly likened the wisdom of the move to striking a match aboard the Hindenburg.

There was a full-blown revolt among students and alumni, who include some of the most powerful people in Mississippi -- outgoing Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and Republican Gov.-elect Haley Barbour among them. Bumper stickers appeared reading, “Colonel Reb is my mascot.” T-shirts declared, “The Colonel forever.”

At this fall’s homecoming, Chad Herod, a pharmaceutical salesman (Class of ‘01), and Lisa Stout, 36, whose family owns a carpet store in town, lunched on fried chicken under a gauzy canopy where a sign proclaimed: “The Colonel will always be welcome here.”

“It’s been our mascot ever since the ‘50s,” Stout said. “The kids love him. Leave him alone.”

“If you polled the alumni,” Herod added, “you’d find 94%-95% in favor of keeping him.”

That is not in the administration’s game plan.

In June, Ole Miss Athletic Director Pete Boone announced the colonel would no longer appear on the football field to cheer on the Rebels. In his place, the university offered a pair of potential replacements: Rebel Bruiser, a younger, bigger-biceped version of the colonel, and Rowdy Rebel, who seemed to some wags to look like Mr. Clean in a football jersey.

An online poll was opened so students, members of the alumni association, university faculty and staff, season ticket holders and members of the Loyalty Foundation, which supports university athletics, could choose the new mascot. But only a fraction of the approximately 40,000 people qualified to cast ballots did so. Rebel Bruiser received 2,080 votes, Rowdy Rebel 344.

Acknowledging that grass-roots support for change was lacking, university Chancellor Robert C. Khayat called off the election. “It is clear from the responses received and from general public discussion that there is no community support for either of the proposed mascots,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, the matter is closed.”

Closed, or just in abeyance. For at perhaps no institution of higher learning is the matter of symbols more freighted with controversy. Even Ole Miss, the school’s affectionate nickname, mirrors the checkered past of this cotton-growing state of the Old South. It was the term of address used by slaves to refer to the plantation mistress.

When James Meredith, under the protection of federal troops, enrolled in 1962 as the first black student at the University of Mississippi, there were violent clashes that left two people dead, 48 soldiers injured and 30 U.S. marshals with gunshot wounds.

Today, 13% of the student body is African American, in a state where the black percentage of the population is nearly three times that. Weekend crowds in The Grove still are overwhelmingly white.

“When I first came here, it was culture shock,” said Florence Fraser, 28, a Latino from New York who arrived when her husband entered the university’s law school. “Here people rally around the Dixie flag. The way we were taught, the Confederate flag stood for people who wanted to separate from the United States of America.”

Khayat, an alumnus who has been chancellor since 1995, has said his aim is to transform Ole Miss into one of America’s leading public universities while still respecting tradition. In 1996, the faculty senate, head football coach, alumni association board and student government asked fans to stop waving the Confederate flag at home games. Last year, a series of lectures, concerts and symposiums commemorated the 40th anniversary of the university’s integration.

In 2001, Phi Beta Kappa, the honorary academic society, opened a chapter here. University enrollment, at 13,000, is at an all-time high, as is the number of black students. A five-year fund-raising drive to improve academics netted $525 million in contributions. An honors college and international studies institute have opened.

“Our message has been, this place has undergone enormous change. And the symbols need to change as well,” said Jeffrey Alford, assistant vice chancellor for university relations.

But for some in the extended university community, tampering with a beloved mascot is taking political correctness too far.

“We have a lot of traditions down South, that’s why we have trouble getting rid of Colonel Reb, who for me represents being Southern in general,” said Ray Ferguson, 49, of Memphis. Ferguson’s son Brian, a student, has been prominent in marshaling student and alumni support for bringing the cane-swinging gent back to the sidelines at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

But Alford -- who said that the angry e-mails and phone calls he has gotten over the mascot issue have dropped off dramatically of late -- reports that the colonel has probably attended his last football game.

“At this point, the decision stands: He has been retired,” Alford said.

And while the Rebels lost a 17-14 heartbreaker Saturday to traditional rival Louisiana State, they are 8-3 and ranked No. 18 nationally heading into a cross-state matchup against Mississippi State tonight. A winning record may have helped soothe tempers and hurt feelings.

“Now that Colonel Rebel is gone, we’re enjoying our greatest success in football in 40 years,” Alford said.

Ole Miss' Colonel Reb is gone with the wind

University of Mississippi mascot Colonel Reb roamed the stands at last year's Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. The mascot was based on white plantation owners.

10:50 AM on Feb 23, 2010 CST

JACKSON, Miss. - Colonel Reb shall not rise again. That much is certain.

The University of Mississippi dumped the mascot, a caricature of a white plantation owner, in a 2003 effort to distance the school from Old South stereotypes. It's been without a mascot ever since. A vote today could change that.

Students will have only two choices in the online referendum: yes, replace the colonel with something else - perhaps a riverboat gambler or a Colonial soldier - or no, remain the only school in the Southeastern Conference without a mascot.

In a world where football is akin to religion and sports symbolism carries the power of a totem, this is no small matter. Stories about the upcoming vote have run prominently in the campus newspaper for weeks, along with "Save Colonel Reb" advertisements.

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"We're tired of having nothing to represent us," said junior Josh Hinton, a member of the Associated Student Body, which approved a resolution calling for the vote. "We've gotten our song taken away. We want to have some kind of tradition back."

Ole Miss, with its pristine lawns and white-columned buildings, has struggled for more than a decade with how to retain that tradition while shedding symbols of the Old South. It's all part of an effort to remove past racial tensions that date to 1962, when a deadly riot followed James Meredith's attempt to become the university's first black student.

In 1997, the school ended the waving of Confederate flags at sporting events. Then Colonel Reb was booted off the field. Last year, the band stopped playing the fight song, "From Dixie with Love," to discourage the fan chant, "The South will rise again."

Koriann Porter, a black sophomore who collected more than 1,700 student signatures in support of a new mascot, said much has changed on campus since the civil rights era. The school has clubs devoted to diversity, and 15 percent of the 18,344 students are black. The state has a black population of 37.2 percent.

"When it comes to racial reconciliation, we embody the utopian society," she said.

Maybe not altogether utopian: Richard McKay, vice president of the Associated Student Body, said he got some hate e-mail about the vote.

"We've gotten a lot of input, whether it was asked for or not," said McKay, who is white. "A lot of students are afraid that as soon as we have a new mascot, everyone will forget about Colonel Reb."

Still, Colonel Reb hasn't disappeared altogether from the university. Ole Miss holds the license to the image so it's still on bumper stickers, lapel pins and other merchandise on display at Rebel games.

Other vestiges of the Old South can also be found on campus. The Mississippi state flag, with its Confederate battle emblem, is still flown and the team nickname remains the Rebels, adopted in 1936 after a group of sportswriters voted to replace the Flood. That won't change even if the mascot does.

Chancellor Dan Jones said the administration will support the students' decision.

They're not the only ones closely watching the vote. Alum Bob Dunlap, 80, who's in the tire business, said he has donated about $1 million to Ole Miss athletics over the years, but he'll probably stop if Colonel Reb is removed from the campus entirely. He said the vote is unnecessary.

"Everybody liked that little guy at those ball games," Dunlap said. "They just create a lot of bad feeling when they do these type of things."

Visitors can wander through the stalls, sampling local delicacies and discovering new flavors. But what truly makes Budapest's food markets magical is the opportunity to try traditional Hungarian street food. From lángos, a deep-fried dough topped with sour cream and cheese, to chimney cake, a sweet pastry coated in sugar and cinnamon, the market stalls offer a taste of Hungary's rich culinary heritage. But the magic doesn't stop at the Great Market Hall. Budapest is also home to other food markets, each with its own unique charm. The Hold Utca Market, for example, is a small market located in the Jewish Quarter. Here, visitors can find a variety of street food vendors, selling everything from falafel to goulash. Another must-visit food market is the Fény Street Market. This market is less touristy and more frequented by locals. It offers a wide range of fresh produce, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers. It's the perfect place to stock up on ingredients for a homemade Hungarian feast. In conclusion, Budapest's food markets are a magical haven for food lovers. Whether you're a fan of traditional Hungarian cuisine or international flavors, these markets offer something for everyone. From the bustling Great Market Hall to the small and charming Hold Utca Market, each market has its own unique vibe. So, if you ever find yourself in Budapest, make sure to visit these magical food havens and indulge in the culinary delights they have to offer..

Reviews for "Budapest's culinary paradise: a haven for food lovers"

1. John - 1/5 - I was really disappointed with Magical Food Haven in Budapest. The food was highly overrated and overpriced. The ambiance was nothing special, just a typical tourist trap. The service was also slow and inattentive, making the whole experience even more frustrating. I would not recommend wasting your time and money at this place when there are so many better options in Budapest.

2. Sarah - 2/5 - I had high hopes for Magical Food Haven, but my experience was far from magical. The concept of the restaurant is interesting, but the execution falls flat. The dishes lacked flavor and were poorly seasoned. The portions were also quite small given the prices charged. The service was average at best, with the staff seeming disinterested in providing a memorable dining experience. Overall, I was unimpressed and would not dine here again.

3. Michael - 2/5 - I had heard great things about Magical Food Haven in Budapest, but my visit left much to be desired. The food was mediocre at best, failing to live up to the high expectations I had. The menu was limited and offered little variety. Additionally, the service was slow and inattentive. The restaurant was also quite noisy, making it difficult to enjoy any conversation. Overall, I was underwhelmed by my experience and would not recommend this place to others.

Exploring the culinary wonders of Budapest's food markets