The origin of goulash soup

Nowadays, if you go to any popular restaurant frequented by tourists, but I'll go further, almost any restaurant serving local dishes, goulash soup is a must on the menu. Walking through the streets in the heart of our capital, it is inconceivable not to pass a sign advertising 'real Hungarian goulash', sloppily scrawled in German or English.

From a simple dish to a Hungaricum
Once invented by lowland goulashers and shepherds and prepared in a traditional metal pot in the open air, this speciality has slowly, slowly become a Hungaricum over time (interestingly, it was a literally slow process, as it was only officially added to the list of Hungaricums in 2017). If you stop a foreign tourist in the street and talk to him about Hungary, after mentioning Buda Castle, the Parliament, the Gellért statue and Öcsi Puskás, you can be sure that he will also mention goulash...

The origins of goulash soup
But where did this richly flavoured dish with its characteristic spices come from and why is it so deeply embedded in Hungarian gastronomy? As mentioned in the introduction to this article, this dish was first prepared and consumed by goulashers and shepherds on a daily basis for practical reasons, as all the ingredients were available for its preparation while they were at work.

The first written record of the dish comes from a Komárom County wedding menu of 1859, although this was probably due to a misunderstanding, as it was almost impossible to eat it as a main course at that time. In any case, the Academic Dictionary regularly refers to this speciality from 1886 onwards and thereafter it is mentioned more and more often, but by then the dish was more commonly understood as a stew than a soup.

'Goulash is a soupy dish made with plenty of stock, onions and peppers, with diced potatoes and chips', wrote the restaurateur Károly Gundel, who also drew up a detailed and strict itinerary to distinguish goulash from stew, paprika and sturgeon.

The number of houses, the number of goulashes
The way goulash soup is prepared varies from region to region, and it is safe to say that the number of houses, the number of customs, since, if you simply search for it on the Internet, you will find no number of 'real goulash recipes'. However, one thing that almost everyone agrees on is that the use of flour for thickening is strictly forbidden, and that a small amount of thickened tomatoes is preferable. Real goulash soup is basically made from beef, but over the years it has become quite common to find versions made from mutton, any poultry meat, wild or even mixed meat, and even so-called fake goulash, in which green beans, mushrooms or any vegetable are substituted for the meat.

So, to sum up, although goulash soup has unfortunately been thoroughly discredited by some restaurants, if you come to KIOSK, you should definitely try our version, which is made with grated pasta and served with sourdough bread and real Hungarian hot peppers.