Goulash

• 1. Introduction

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  Goulash may trace its roots to the 10th century, when Hungarian shepherds carried meat that had been cooked, seasoned and dried in the sun. They packed that meat into bags made from sheep's stomachs. All it needed to become a meal was water.

  A thousand years on, goulash counts among the national dishes of Hungary and stands as a symbol of the country. Yet the same word now covers very different things. In one pot it is a paprika-red soup simmered over an open fire. In another it is a family dinner built on elbow macaroni.

  How did a travelling ration become a national emblem? Why does the Hungarian language insist that goulash is a soup and never a stew? And how did one herdsman's meal spread across an empire and over an ocean?

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• 2. The Cattle Herder's Name

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  In Hungarian, the word gulya means a herd of cattle, and gulyás means the person who tends it, a cattle herder or cowboy. The dish took its name from the job. Over time it became gulyáshús, or goulash meat, a meat dish prepared by herdsmen.

  From the Middle Ages until well into the 19th century, the Puszta, the great Hungarian plain, was home to enormous herds. Cattle were driven in their tens of thousands to the biggest cattle markets in Europe. Those markets stood in Moravia, Vienna, Nuremberg and Venice.

  The herdsmen made sure that some animals were slaughtered along the road, and that fresh meat became their gulyáshús. In medieval times they used every possible part of the animal, as was common practice. Meat was scarce, so nearly the whole animal often went into the pot.

  Today the word gulyás still works two ways. It names the herdsmen, and it names the soup or stew. Vienna, one of those four market cities, would later develop a goulash of its own.

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• 3. Soup, Not Stew

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  In present-day Hungary, gulyás is understood to be a soup. The full name, gulyásleves, simply means gulyás soup. Even when a bowl has more solid pieces than broth, and English speakers might call it a stew, Hungarian keeps a strict distinction between stews and gulyás.

  The dish itself is conservative, with very little variation across the country. Altered versions get their own names. Babgulyás adds beans, and hamisgulyás, meaning fake goulash, has no meat at all.

  Bográcsgulyás is the outdoor form, cooked over open fire in a kettle or cauldron called a bogrács. Its equipment list is short: the bogrács, an iron tripod, a chain and a campfire. That is why it can be prepared anywhere.

  Every type of gulyás is strictly a one-pot dish, and each counts as a main course, even the soupiest. Except for paprikás, Hungarian stews do not rely on flour or roux for thickening. Original Hungarian recipes rarely use tomatoes, and only in small quantities. The deep red color comes from authentic Hungarian paprika.

  That red is a fairly recent arrival in the story. Paprika was not introduced to Europe until the 16th century, so the earliest versions of the dish had none.

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• 4. At the Kettle

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  The basic ingredients of modern gulyás are beef, onions, paprika, caraway seeds, potatoes, carrots and fresh noodles dropped straight into the soup. The original herdsmen had more access to mutton. A mutton version survives under the name birkagulyás.

  Typical cuts of beef include the shank, shin or shoulder. In Hungary, beef from older cattle is common. It takes longer to cook, though some diners find it tastier.

  The cook cuts the meat into chunks, seasons it with salt, and browns it with sliced onion in oil or lard. Paprika goes in next, along with water, and then the pot is left to simmer. After a while come whole or ground caraway seed and soup vegetables such as potato, carrot and parsley root.

  Potatoes, like paprika, are a post-16th century addition. The dish itself traces back to the nomadic past of the Hungarians.

  The finishing touch is csipetke, small egg noodles. The name comes from csipet, the Hungarian word for a pinch. Cooks pinch fingernail-sized bits from fresh dough and drop them into the boiling soup. Stew-like versions follow the same method, but the broth is allowed to simmer down.

  Restaurants bend the recipe. They replace the extremely long cooking time with ready-made broth, and they swap csipetke for nokedli.

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• 5. Cousins at Home

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  Nokedli, also called galuska, is the Hungarian answer to the German noodle Spaetzle. Cooks make it by grating liquid dough into boiling water. It became a side dish for stews once the herdsmen's food spread through all of Hungarian society.

  As that happened, variations arose that no longer followed the outdoor techniques. One is pörkölt, a stew that evolved from the original gulyás. Another is paprikás, which is pörkölt finished with sour cream.

  Gulyás is always made of beef or mutton. Pörkölt and paprikás can use a wider range of meats, and the name usually says which. Marhapörkölt is beef, sertéspörkölt is pork, csirkepörkölt is chicken and kakaspörkölt is rooster. Fish are left out, with one notable exception: harcsapaprikás, made with catfish.

  The Hungarian roster of goulash variations is long. Betyár gulyás uses smoked beef or smoked pork. Likócsi pork gulyás uses pork and thin vermicelli, flavored with lemon juice. Csángó gulyás swaps the pasta and potatoes for sauerkraut.

  Székely gulyás is a thicker, richer dish, originally made with three kinds of meat. It is named for József Székely, a writer, journalist and archivist who lived from 1825 to 1895. Another account of the same name describes it without potatoes and with sauerkraut and sour cream.

  Paprikás krumpli is a traditional paprika-based potato stew. It holds diced potatoes, onion and ground paprika, with bacon or a sliced spicy sausage such as smoked Debrecener standing in for beef. In German-speaking countries this inexpensive peasant stew is made with sausage and called Kartoffelgulasch, or potato goulash.

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• 6. Imperial Tables

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  Thick stews like pörkölt are popular across almost all of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, from Northeast Italy to the Carpathians. They are served with boiled or mashed potato, polenta, dumplings, spätzle, or simply bread. Romani people have their own version too.

  In Vienna, the empire's former center, a special kind of goulash developed. The Wiener Saftgulasch is a rich stew much like pörkölt. It uses more onions, no tomatoes or other vegetables, and usually arrives with dark bread. The Fiakergulasch is named for the fiacre, a horse-drawn cab. It is served with fried egg, fried sausage, pickles and Semmelknödel dumplings.

  In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, guláš is usually beef, served with boiled or steamed bread dumplings. Slovakia more typically serves it with bread. In pubs it comes garnished with slices of fresh onion and is typically accompanied by beer. Beer can also go into the pot while it cooks. Seasonal versions use venison or wild boar, and segedínský guláš adds sauerkraut.

  German Gulasch comes as Rindergulasch, Schweinegulasch, Hirschgulasch or Wildschweingulasch, meaning beef, pork, venison or wild boar. It may include red wine. In the north it is usually served with potatoes. Canteens favor white rice or spirelli noodles, and the south prefers dumplings. Gulaschsuppe is the same idea as a soup, usually with pieces of white bread.

  In Italy, goulash is eaten in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, regions that once belonged to the empire. There it is a regular Sunday dish. The Pustertal, or Val Pusteria, in South Tyrol has a distinctive recipe. It combines beef and red wine with rosemary, red paprika, bay leaf, marjoram and lemon zest, and comes with crusty white bread or polenta. Goulash is also quite popular in the city of Ancona, which is culturally close to eastern Europe.

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• 7. Balkans and Beyond

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  In Bosnia and Herzegovina, goulash is spelled gulaš and counts as a very popular, traditional dish. It arrived during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and became a staple. The Bosnian version is thicker, with an emphasis on slow-cooked onions and meat. It is typically served with bread, mashed potatoes or polenta, and some regions add veal, carrots or beans.

  In Croatia, the north around Hrvatsko Zagorje and the region of Lika are especially fond of gulaš. In Gorski Kotar and Lika, venison or wild boar frequently replace beef in the hunter's version, lovački gulaš. Another kind uses porcini mushrooms. Bacon is an important ingredient, and the dish is often served with fuži, njoki, polenta or pasta.

  In Serbia, goulash is especially common in Vojvodina, where it was probably introduced by the province's Hungarian population. Meat and onions are compulsory, usually in a 50-50 ratio, along with paprika and lard or oil. At the very end, some cooks sweeten it with tomato paste, sugar or dark chocolate. Macaroni or potato mash is the usual side.

  In Slovenia, partizanski golaž, or partisan goulash, was favored by Slovenian partisans during the Second World War. It is still regularly served at mass public events. It uses onion in equal proportion to meat, and usually two or more kinds of meat. Home cooks make a thick beef stew most often, served with mashed potatoes, and Szeged goulash, called segedin, is also popular.

  Farther afield, Poland eats gulasz in most parts of the country, with mashed potatoes or dumplings such as pyzy. Some Northern Albanians consider gullash a traditional dish. In the Netherlands, goulash is usually beef and eaten as a stew, which puts it closer to pörkölt.

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• 8. Mishmash

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  North American goulash has appeared in cookbooks since at least 1914. It began as a dish of seasoned beef. Core ingredients of the American version now usually include elbow macaroni, cubed steak or ground beef, and tomatoes in some form, whether canned whole, as sauce, as soup or as paste.

  This descendant of Hungarian goulash probably began as a variation of bográcsgulyás, which mixes all the ingredients together at the end. That habit of mixing likely led to many variations, in which almost any mixture of meat and paprika is called goulash. The dish is popular among American Jews.

  In English, the word goulash has taken on a second meaning, a hodgepodge or jumble of mixed elements. Czech and Slovak slang gives guláš a similar sense of mishmash. The phrase mít v tom guláš means to be disoriented or to lack understanding of something.

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