Goulash (gulyás)

Gulyás means "cattle herdsman" in Hungarian. The dish goes back to the 10th-century stews of Hungarian herdsmen: cooked meat was sun-dried, stored in bags made from sheep's stomachs and needed only water to become a meal again.

Today's goulash is a hearty soup of beef, onion, potatoes, carrots and plenty of paprika — which reached Europe only in the 16th century, so the earliest versions had none.

A symbol of Hungary loved throughout Central Europe, it is especially prized as bogrács gulyás, cooked in a cauldron over an open fire.