I was now thoroughly confused. “Yeah, so am I,” I shrugged.

“Well, you know… if my mother or grandmother had free time, they wouldn’t pick up a book. They’d call someone on the phone.”

Huh? I’m very, very Hungarian (as much as a first-generation American who doesn’t even speak the language can be) but this I never heard. Hungarians don’t read? My people didn’t get the memo.

My love of reading was actively inculcated and encouraged by my mother. As a child, she would take me to the library (where I had a favorite librarian) and we’d stock up. If she went without me, she’d get books for me as well as herself. When I reached tweenhood, she introduced me to her favorites. Eventually I read through all the heavy novels she had tackled years before — and then some.

But Babi was the reader first. Her house had a shelf cluttered with paperbacks. She was fascinated by children’s books; she thought Curious George was very exciting, “loter taam.” Once, when my sister was visiting with her then two young daughters, Babi donned her thick pair of reading glasses and loudly read to my stunned nieces a book about the monkey. I rarely, if ever, heard her speak English, but I still remember her sounding out the words, “the little cheel-dren ex-claimed.”

When she would visit us in the summers, Babi could spend an entire afternoon outside beneath a shady tree with a book. I’d kiss her hello when I came home from day camp, and she would slowly surface from her fascinated reverie with a distant smile, then return to her tome.

It’s not that my mother and grandmother weren’t social. They were. Very, very social. But they also loved to read.

So. Hungarian and big readers.

It is privilege to be Hungarian, but it’s irritating to get pigeonholed by others, what with the accompanying manual of expectations and stereotypes. I had never heard the not-reading one, but you know that one about Hungarian women and their sparkling homes….

Weeeeell… Babi was Hungarian… and an indifferent housekeeper. If anything, my Czech Babi’s house was gleaming, but Hungarian Babi wasn’t particularly compelled to scrub and scour and polish to perfection — the standard was “good enough.” Ma was the same. I’m the same.

Next up: Hungarians and the kitchen. Hungarians love to cook! They take pride in it! They’ll whip up a four-course meal just in case a grandchild might visit!

Um… so, Babi cooked. Of course she cooked. It had to be done. Her food was quite tasty, too (even though the house was salt-less in consideration of her high blood pressure, and pepper-less for Zeidy’s digestion). I still remember her paprikash, and the image of Zeidy happily tinking his challah in the orange-tinged sauce. But did Babi enjoy cooking? Hard no. “I have to feed you again?” she would groan at her children, “But I fed you yesterday!”

Ma was an excellent cook, always researching recipes and methods for improvement. Still, she’d be insulted if anyone said she “liked to cook.” She didn’t like it. Only, once she was cooking, might as well do the job right.

As for me? Likewise. I do lots of exploration and experimentation in the food world — I’m awaiting five requested cookbooks from the library — but it’s not like I crow, “This is fun!!!” while flipping blintz crepes. I want the food to be good, but I’m not crazy about the process. Looking at my family every evening, I wonder if I can get away with cereal — again.

Luckily, I parted from my newfound friend without having undergone an identity crisis; I am still Hungarian, because, well, 75 percent of my grandparents are from there. And Babi was “Hungarian” in many other ways, like her appreciation of all things beautiful, like fashion. When I dressed up, I dressed up for Babi, in my newest, sharpest attire, and I bolted to her side when entering every simchah, so she could feel the fabric between her fingers, and trace the lines of the well-cut seams as she breathed, “Byoo-tee-ful.” When I excitedly showed her my ankle-strap ballet flats with the pom-poms on the ends, she said in Hungarian to my mother that I should stand on the table for the centerpiece. I rarely shopped alone — usually with Ma — and one of the gauges was, “Would Babi like this?”

My fascination with skincare? Babi. In Hungary, her sister was a trained aesthetician, and Babi would send my young aunt or Ma down the lane with an empty jar to be filled with a homemade face cream. When she was 90, I was ordering for her (and her Hungarian aide) a vitamin E moisturizer that she particularly liked. Ma, who took after her there as well, was the one who ushered me over the threshold with a bottle of Olay Complete when I was 15. At night, when I slather my skin before bed, I often think of Babi.

I revel in my heritage, but I sometimes wonder if I ascribe it too much credit. I’m Hungarian because I’m into skincare. I’m Hungarian because I like pretty things. I’m Hungarian because chicken doesn’t get any better than paprikash. But what about all the other “Hungarian” characteristics I don’t abide by? Do I have to hand in my credentials? “She’s a fraud! Her windows haven’t been washed yet this season!”

Where does the Hungarian end? Where do I begin?

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 908)