Q.1 What was paprika hendl? Why was Mr. Harker so
impressed with it?
Answers
Answer:
While making the journey to Castle Dracula to consult on an extremely sketchy property deal, Jonathan Harker stops at the Hotel Royale in Klausenburgh (German term for Cluj-Napoca in modern Romania, and the unofficial capital of Transylvania). Writing in his journal from Bistrita, some miles to the east, he comments on his dinner that night:
“I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty.”
By ‘thirsty,’ I think he means spicy. Harker asks the waiter what the dish was, and is told it was paprika hendl, the national dish of the area. Harker comments in his journal that he must obtain the recipe for his wife Mina. Stoker does not report if she ever made it (we doubt it), but the very idea that the recipe would have been for Mina speaks volumes of gender roles in the 1800s.