The Lekvar Museum in Transcarpathia: a palette of vivid flavours
It has historically been the case that at all times it was lekvar (as Transcarpathians call jam and fruit preserves), together with mangalica pigs (a unique breed), that fed this settlement. Local farmer Pavlo Tizesh turned the village’s staple “bread” into a real gem of the region. Today his farmstead, which produces organic goods under the famous “Pan Eko” brand, is known across the whole country and beyond.
The small workshop produces more than two dozen kinds of fruit preserve to an old family recipe. The raw ingredients for the jams, juices, cordials and syrups are grown in the surroundings of Transcarpathia’s environmentally clean districts - Rakhiv, Volovets and Velykyi Bereznyi. The owners also keep several hundred Hungarian Grey cattle and curly-coated mangalica pigs of the old Hungarian breed, developed as far back as 1833! Mangalica meat has unique flavour characteristics and contains no cholesterol.
The look of the lekvar museum and the tastings
The vivid, colourful look of the farmstead itself attracts tourists from all around. A distinctive little bridge made of giant spoons leads to the entrance. Nearby the owners have installed two miniature monuments: a huge ceramic mangalica pig and a jar of lekvar. Inside the museum, guests see a large world map of fruit preserves, marked to show where and which jam is made. And from a stand displaying several dozen varieties of lekvar, you’ll want to try literally everything!
What attracts tourists most to the lekvar museum in Transcarpathia is precisely the tasting of the eco-complex’s produce. Six kinds of Transcarpathian lekvar are served on a bright tasting platter in the Hungarian folk style. As a savoury accompaniment, you’ll be offered several kinds of homemade piknytsia (sausages) made from the farm’s own mangalica. Meat with fruit preserve is the signature dish of the local cuisine. You can also sample local juices, organic cordials, fruit sauces and syrups, and dishes of Hungarian cuisine .
The lekvar-making process and the museum’s range
Making lekvar is not only a Transcarpathian family tradition but a whole science and culture. It is boiled in an enormous cauldron for between 8 and 24 hours, without sugar, until the mixture thickens. Each member of the family takes a turn stirring the preserve with a wooden spoon. The finished preserve can be kept in the pantry for a full 10 years and has unique healing properties.
All the farmstead’s produce is made to European standards and meets the EU’s strict requirements. These are 
exclusively certified organic products, made using traditional techniques from organic raw ingredients of Ukrainian origin, without the use of any chemical additives, artificial preservatives, flavour enhancers or GMOs.
The range offered by the lekvar museum in Transcarpathia is truly impressive:
- - 26 kinds of jam : wild strawberry, blackcurrant, sloe, bilberry, rowan, apricot, redcurrant, plum, strawberry, cherry, elderberry, cornelian cherry, blackberry, raspberry, cranberry and lingonberry;
- - 5 kinds of honey : acacia, lime, May honey, goldenrod and wildflower;
- - 4 kinds of drink : chokeberry, cranberry, rosehip and elderflower;
- - 13 kinds of syrup : raspberry, cherry, cranberry, rowan, blackberry, strawberry, bilberry, lingonberry, sea buckthorn, sloe, elderflower, cornelian cherry and redcurrant;
- - 13 kinds of juice : beetroot-apple, bilberry-apple, cherry-apple, celery-apple, carrot-apple, tomato, pear, grape, plum-apple, apple, birch, and peach-apple;
- - 7 sets of dried fruit : “Cossack”, “Classic”, “Easter”, “Halych”, “Christmas”, “Baron’s”, and dried pear.
You can taste delicious Transcarpathian eco-lekvar during our excursion to royal Vynohradiv
