Erika Izsak on the MIKEFE

This photo was taken in Budapest in 1937. You can see only a small part of our poultry-yard in the picture. There were storied pens in it, too. Keeping poultry was important, because basically we only ate poultry and also because of the eggs. The setting of the hens was in the spring: they put the eggs on straw in a big chip-basket, 20-25 in each basket, and the hen sat on those, with small breaks night and day, for two to three weeks, as far as I remember. This all happened in the kitchen, there was enough room for even two to three baskets at one time. It started to get exciting when the chicken started to hatch. On those days there was only some simple cooking, both my mother and the maid were busy with the new arrivals. I loved the tiny feathery things, it happened, allegedly, that I squashed some of them.