Polymer clay - Its funny history - what can I do with that sticky stuff?

A week ago, when I was in Budapest, taking pictures of the panorama from the top of Gellért Hill, I stopped in a tiny shop I'd been in for at least 5-6 years. The idea came from seeing a friend's Facebook post about the wonders she has been making with polymer clay - for 40 years.
She also buys the polymer clay there, which is 100% Hungarian and as such the first of its kind in the world. Its inventor is a woman, now 87 years old, and everyone calls her Mamo. She is very nice, youthful and still very active.
A week ago she did a podcast with her daughter, who now runs the shop. She told us about her adventurous discovery of clay back in the late 50s. She worked in a lab and her job was to experiment with new materials. Once, she made a mixture of clay and made a caricature of her boss, and her colleagues burst out laughing. Meanwhile, the boss arrived, and the girl, still in her twenties, frightened, threw the head into a pot of boiling water.
The next day the piece was perfectly hard!