Once upon a time in an era called The Seventies, my mom received a copy of this little 25-page cookbook called Foods Men Like. It lived on the shelf with all the other cookbooks when I was growing up, and I loved marveling at its sheer weirdness, its quirky illustrations, and its peculiar assortment of recipes that Betty Crocker was just SO sure men would like. The tone of this book is basically this: men like to (and should) constantly eat gigantic quantities of substantial, dense, hearty man foods; women probably shouldn't eat these foods (or any type of food, actually) because it's bad for their figures; and, since women don't eat, they have plenty of time to cook lots of man foods for their perpetually starving men, who are basically smaller versions of the Allosaurus, with dozens of sharp white teeth made for nothing but gruesome, savage meat-eating, day in and day out.
Let's keep in mind here that I grew up with a mom and a dad who weren't into the whole, you know, roles scene. Everyone did the tasks and chores that they were best at doing, or that they liked best (as testament to this, my dad does, in fact, still clean all the floors) and/or the tasks that best worked into their schedule. We shared the load. Equally. And I always felt equal -- as a child and as a girl. My parents spent years showing my brother and me that boys and girls can do anything, and men and women can do anything, and no one was put on earth to serve anyone else, and everyone should work together because that's the best way, The End. There wasn't a lick of misogyny in our house growing up. Not a single drop of the stuff! So, when I was about eight years old and I read the back cover of Foods Men Like, I was, above all else, confused. You, too, shall be confused. Here, I'll enlighten you. It goes a little something like this:
How long has it been since you've fixed a very special meal for those very special men in your life? Too long? Make up for lost time today. Here to help you, in one little book, are the A to Z's of the foods men fancy. Remember them, too, when you're looking for a subtle way to say "Thank you," "Please" or "I'm sorry."
Oh! And:
Success-Insurance: Every recipe has been tested in the Betty Crocker Kitchens and in homes like your all across the country.
O, phew! So these recipes have all been tested in homes like mine? Great! Homes where women do all the cooking because cooking is certainly not men's work and women then use the food as currency when they want something that they can't get for themselves, like a new washer and dryer set, or that pearl necklace in the window at the department store downtown, or perhaps that soul of hers that her husband slurped out of her body on the day they got married? Perfect!
Ah, now. Never fear. I'll tell you, my days of actual marching for equality are pretty far behind me, and I'm certainly not much of an angry fear-mongering activist these days, but here's the thing. I've loved watching myself grow up and grow through all these layers of belief, all these stages of understanding and analysis about men and women and their roles in homes and society. I love to think about how I was a headstrong kid who grew into a headstrong teenager, who grew into a pretty headstrong adult. And it's not because I want to cause a fuss, or put up a fight (I'm really such a pacifist, it's silly, and I genuinely abhor being the center of attention) but only because I want things to be right, and I crave fairness and sharing and understanding like it's some sort of drug. My own personal hell, in fact, consists of zillions of people who fight righteously and endlessly and can't see themselves as equals. That, and I'm washing out peanut butter jars, marshmallow fluff jars, and consuming nothing but organ meats and Midori around the clock.
So, of course, even when I was little, I doubted not only the concept of this book, but also some of the recipe choices in this book. I mean, get a load of this: Jelly omelet! Orange swizzle! Pork hocks! Yep, they're in there, and you might just see me crank one of them out sometime soon. There was one recipe, though, that I knew to be a pleaser for not just the man in my family (dad) but also for the rest of us (you know, non-men). My mom made it every now and then, and I was in love with it. When I first tasted it, I knew I wanted to learn how to make it, and put it on the list in my head of Things I'll Do When I'm A Grown-Up. When I became a vegetarian in high school, I missed this dish, and I thought about it often through college and afterwards. When I finally started eating meat again, I planned to make it, although it took until a few years ago for me to actually get around to it. I was worried that it wouldn't taste as good as it did when I was young, and that was such a barrier for me, but I came around.
The thing? The magical dish? Goulash. Hungarian Goulash. That's what we're talking about.
Several years ago, I ordered a copy of Foods Men Like from Amazon, and was happy to find that someone named Vivian Dowell owned it before me. Her leaning, careful cursive on the back of the book looked identical to my grandmother's, and I traced the letters, especially the V and the D with my finger, analyzing the curves and loops and carefulness, and comparing it to the cursive that I had practiced in school. I pictured Vivian and my grandmother, Claire, in grade school together, practicing their writing in a classroom strict and silent, with thick petticoats, itchy woolen tights on their legs, and a deep urge to run outside and do unladylike things, like climb trees and play baseball. I saw them going home to roles, precision, and a dinner of meat and potatoes. I saw them falling asleep at night with a certain kind of safety in their hearts, coupled with a hard-to-describe discomfort, an unexplainable urge to do something big, something not allowed, something brazen and not fit for girls who lived in the 1920's. When they pictured their lives, when they pictured the women they would become, who did they see? Forty years later, when the world was so different, what were they most proud of? How did they shape themselves, and how did their families shape them?
I keep my copy of Foods Men Like in the kitchen, and I flip through it often, admiring the colors, reveling in the unusual fonts, and laughing about the illustrator's name: Murray Tinkelman. (He is, by the way, still around, and doing loads of beautiful illustrations.) When I look at the book, and I take it out and see the potato-brown cover, I fly back to my warm, safe, growing-up kitchens with my mom, and I'm getting out the ketchup and the Worcestershire sauce for her, trying to not get in the way, trying to respect her cooking flow. I think of my mom, and my grandmother, and my great-grandmother, and the millions of ways all three of them shaped me. When I think of this, I float from generation to generation in my head, connecting them like stars in the constellations. The four of us, supremely different, yet undeniably similar. Cooking, all of us, because we loved feeding the people around us, and never because a man expected it from us. And lucky enough, really, to have found the sorts of men who support us and respect us, and who appreciate every move we make, culinary or otherwise. And when I turn to page twelve, I finally see Hungarian Goulash, and I can smell it, and I am home, and I am content-to-the-core happy. I reel with joy.
On Friday, I did it. I made the goulash when I got home from work. I had been thinking about it for one week, plotting the starchy side that would accompany it while I was resolutely poking away in the database at work, and choosing the cut of meat while I was absently filling up my gas tank or pouring coffee in the morning. By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, my beef stew meat was tucked neatly under my arm and I was heading home, ready for action. Goulash! I shouted into the winter grey. I'm on my way!
Bottom line, I think it was quite good, just like I remember it. To be properly delicious, goulash really does need to cook for quite awhile. Three hours, in fact, perhaps more. Low and slow is the name of the game here, so make sure you have a pocket of time in which the goulash can simmer for quite awhile on the stovetop. Other than the time commitment, though, goulash is absurdly easy. If you can put things in a pot, you're in luck! Goulash is the recipe for you.
Disclaimer: I'm a bit of an impostor, I reckon! I really don't know that much about Hungarian food, and I honestly am not incredibly familiar with the cuisine of the other countries -- Bosnia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bosnia, Croatia --where goulash is traditional and/or popular, although (ha ha) I did just read that article in Saveur this morning about Transylvania. I've been doing enough research, though, to know that I this goulash recipe is quite Americanized (now that's a huge shocker from Betty Crocker!). Accordingly, I've altered the recipe from Foods Men Like a little bit, but I've kept it pretty true, because that's the way I love it and remember it from my childhood. I invite you to tweak it to appeal to your personal taste or to your sense of nostalgia for a particular goulash-region of the world, but I think you'll find that this version is quite delicious just as it is.
(Americanized) Hungarian Goulash
adapted from Foods Men Like
2 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 lb. beef stew meat (chuck or round, cut into 1" or 2" cubes)
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 C ketchup
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T brown sugar
2 t paprika
2 t salt
1/2 t dry mustard powder
1/2 t black pepper
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1 3/4 C water, divided
2 T flour
Heat oil in a dutch oven. Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are translucent and delicious-smelling. Add beef and cook until meat is browned. Stir in ketchup, Worcestershire, sugar, salt, paprika, mustard, cayenne, and 1 1/2 C water. Cover and simmer on low for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, longer if you have the time. Every once in awhile, poke and stir it, breaking up the meat pieces when they start to soften, or, if you're feeling anxious, cutting the meat hunks with scissors while they're in the pot. You'll know it's done with the meat is breaking down on its own and the whole mixture is starting to thicken.
Mix flour and remaining 1/4 C water in a bowl with a fork until blended. Stir into the goulash and simmer a bit longer until flour mixture has been integrated. (This quick faux-roux is not part of the traditional preparation, but I do prefer it this way!)
Serve with hot egg noodles, spaetzle, dumplings, or potatoes. I tend to use these great little egg drop noodles made by Bende, a terrific (and very authentic) Hungarian food company headquartered located in Vernon Hills, IL.
Note: you can also add vegetables (carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips) to the original mixture OR roast them and serve them with the goulash at the end.
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Additional Bonus Segment!
Interview With A Food-Eating Man
Installment #1: Hungarian Goulash
Q: Have you had this dish before?
A: No. Never.
Q: What do you like most about it?
A: I like how it could go with a lot of things. It could be put over rice, it could be put over noodles, it could be put over bread, it could be put over the stuff that you put it over when we had it.
Q: Is there anything you don't like about it?
A: The things we had it with? Dumplings? Noodles? Whatever we had it with. No offense, but I think I would have liked bread or rice or noodles or potatoes more. I still really liked it! The little dumpling things were too much like brains. Didn't they seem kind of like brains?
Q: What do you think most men would like about this dish?
A: The name. It has a nice manly name. GOULASH! Marrggghhhh! GOULASH!
Q: If this dish could talk, what do you think it would say?
A: It would yell at me in Russian and then deport my family.
Q: Do you think this dish is appropriate for people who are not men?
A: No. Of course not. It's for men only. Like that candy bar in England, Yorkie.
Q: Would you have this dish again?
A: Yes. Absolutely.
Q: Any other comments about goulash?
A: It's got a nice sneaky spice level to it. Thank you.
