The Origins Of Goulash Date Back To The 9th Century

Blending Italian, Jewish, and Ottoman influences, Hungarian dining enthralls with many delicious dishes. However, if there's a single food that defines the Central European cuisine, it's goulash (locally called gulyás). Assembled using a medley of lard, onion, and paprika, this stew not only delights with spiced flavors, but tells the story of the country's complex culinary heritage.

Early forms of Hungarian goulash date back to the 9th century, when nomadic Magyar shepherds roamed the region's expansive plains. Needing a satiating yet easily transportable meal, herdsman would simmer lean cuts of beef alongside available ingredients, such as lard, onions, millet, and black pepper. The meat would cook until the water evaporated, then get stuffed into a vessel made from a sheep's stomach. Once hunger struck, the mix could be rehydrated to serve as a filling yet quick meal.

For centuries, gulyás employed cornerstones such as beef, lard, and onion, but missed a critical component: paprika. The indispensable Hungarian aromatic only integrated into local cuisine around the 18th century. Farmers in the countryside started growing the fruit as a black pepper replacement, eventually developing a milling process for the powdered form. Along with caraway, the spice became widely integrated into goulash recipes, becoming a foundational flavor for the dish. Riffs on goulash proliferated, incorporating everything from beans to root vegetables, and occasionally other proteins such as lamb. By the 19th century, goulash gained its status as the iconic Hungarian dish, a recognition it has retained since.

While becoming a beloved Hungarian treasure, the appeal of goulash spread further afield. The dish took on unique regional inflections in neighboring Austrian, Czech, Romanian, and Italian cuisines. Goulash recipes also sailed onto North America, carried by the hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who immigrated to the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. The dish would eventually become one of the continent's most popular meals, all the while evolving away from its Hungarian roots.

For older Americans, the name goulash brings to mind a vintage dish composed of pasta, ground beef, and peppers. Past its use of sauteed onions and a sprinkle of paprika, such a riff bears little in common with its European predecessor. Instead, the composition recalls similarly assimilated dishes such as American chop suey, also a mid-century comfort food classic. Perhaps the noodles evolved out of csipetke, freshly made small pasta traditionally dolloped into Hungarian gulyás. Plus, the oldest dating American goulash recipe (which traces to 1909) employs cut up steak rather than ground beef — another step closer to its European predecessor. Regardless of their historical link, both the paprika-rich Hungarian stew and the pasta casserole deserve a place in your repertoire; they're storied dishes with time-tested appeal.